ON-CHIP COMPENSATION OF SELF-HEATING EFFECTS IN MICROBOLOMETER INFRARED DETECTOR ARRAYS

It is well known that the signal due to self-heating during read-out o f uncooled microbolometers is much larger than that created by inciden t infrared (TP) radiation to be detected. This results in a degradatio n of the performance by requiring a large dynamic range of the preampl ifier to be allocated for the signal due to self-heating. In this pape r, we have studied self-heating during the read-out of microbolometer IR detectors and demonstrated a compensation technique using two micro bolometers arranged in a Wheatstone bridge read-out circuit. Finally, the concept is extended for application in focal plane arrays (FPA) an d a possible circuit configuration is given to achieve the compensatio n which may enhance the performance of uncooled detector arrays. (C) 1 998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.