Novel Biomimetic MEMS Based Infrared Sensor

This program addresses a new approach to IR imager that closely mimics biological organisms sense principals, having advantages in sensitivity, energy efficiency, reliability, and cost as compared with the competitive approaches. The innovation is based on incorporation of sensitive polymer-molecular with a highly efficient micro-machined thermal-mechanical FPA that directly converts IR image into visible image. The biomimetic material engineering holds the promise to manifold increase in the sensitivity of our established photo-thermal MEMS sensors, providing an unprecedented opportunity to produce affordable IR imager. The new micro-bolometer FPA is a real-time continuous IR sensor without the need for cooling, potentially offering high resolution that comparable to cryogenically cooled sensors. They are manufactured with low-cost large-volume processing in standard silicon or MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) foundries, and packaged using low-cost vacuum packaging technologies. The design incorporates optical readout, which eliminates the drawback of electronic means that inevitably introduce additional signal loss due to thermal contact made to the detector element. Moreover, the design is simple, compact, lightweight, low power consumption, rugged, and long operating life. In the Phase I program, thermal sensitivity of 12mK has been achieved. In the Phase II program, fully functional 320x240 biomimetic MEMS IR imager prototype will be developed.