ON CHIP TEMPERATURE SENSOR

Infrared detector array technology has developed significantly over the past few years. In operation, these detectors can significantly improve their signal to noise ratio by cooling to reduce thermal background noise. By maintaining a near constant temperature, more information can be obtained from the output of the detector. At present, these detectors operate from room temperature well into the cryogenic temperature range. Advances in cryogenics have increased the number of detector applications seeking to operate in the 9 to 20 K range. Currently, temperature sensors exist as discrete chips that can be mounted close to the detector to monitor temperature, but the 9 K lower temperature limit is beyond the capbility of most temperature sensors. Those sensors which do operate in the range tend to be physically large forcing them to be mounted in a position which may be far away from the detectyor array. Thermal gradients between the temperature sensor and detector array can cause substantial proboems in interpreting the detector output. A research program is proposed to develop a temperature sensor, useful from 9 to 300 K, which can be fabricated into the detector as part of the detector fabrication or fabricated separately and mounted to the detector as a separate device.