Abstract:
This work is aimed at characterising the DC electrical response of a temperature sensitive
microbolometer device. The contribution lies with the choice and the structure of the device, a
novel bolometer infrared sensing structure consisting of dual sensing elements that are thermally
very closely coupled on a single membrane supporting structure. A mathematical model is presented
to characterise the behaviour of the device resistance and conductance for a given biasing current.
A modified experiment of a well published non-optical method exploiting the normally unwanted
Joule heating of a device when biased with a large direct current is employed for the experimental
verification and validation of the theoretical model. The measured results indicate that the proposed
model approximates the measured results well. Although some deviation occurs, this is to be expected
and discussed.
