Uncooled IR/FPA with YBaCuO Thermal Sensor

"The oxygen deficient, semiconductor phases of YbaCuO (YBCO) thin films have been shown to be a promising material for IR without cryogenics sensing because of its high sensitivity and relative ease of preparation that make the deposition process compatiblewith CMOS integration. Therefore, the material offers the prospect for the realization of high performance, uncooled IR/FPAs that can be massively produced at low cost. However, the optical and electrical properties of the material are very sensitive tothe preparation process. As a result, no useful IR imaging arrays based on YBCO have been successfully demonstrated to date. A comprehensive effort to develop the application of this material that can lead to low-cost uncooled IR/FPAs by using MEMStechnology is proposed. The Phase I effort will focus on the development of YBaCuO semiconducting materials for IR imaging together with a CMOS-compatible integration scheme. The results of Phase I can advance basic understanding of novel applications ofYBaCuO thin film materials, as well as their integration scheme with the mature MEMS technology. Successful outcome of the proposed effort would lead to dramatically improved performance and sensitivity of uncooled microbolometers with significantly lowercost and low power requirement for high performance IR sensors, thereby develop broader and more affordable applications of these devices by the military and the civilian sector."