Large Area Domain Engineered Thin Film Pyroelectric Detectors

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project uses the ¿smart-cut¿ methods to produce high performance and advanced functionality lithium tantalate pyroelectric sensors. Phase I has been devoted to feasibility demonstration of the ¿smart-cut¿ process, preliminary design studies for the advanced pyroelectric detectors and prototype device fabrication and testing. The Phase I effort resulted in the first reported crystal ion slicing of lithium tantalate films. An ion sliced lithium tantalate film was successfully transferred to a silicon substrate. A bond process was developed to scale up the thin lithium tantalate film-on-silicon process to wafer scale. The large areas and film thickness targeted in this work will result in especially large aspect ratio detectors. The results of the Phase I effort have established the building blocks for the actual development and production in Phase II of a commercial prototype pyroelectric detector with significantly improved performance.