Radiant energy – Invisible radiant energy responsive electric signalling – Infrared responsive
Reexamination Certificate
2002-08-22
2004-02-10
Epps, Georgia (Department: 2873)
Radiant energy
Invisible radiant energy responsive electric signalling
Infrared responsive
C250S330000, C250S332000, C250S339090
Reexamination Certificate
active
06690013
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to bolometers, and more specifically to micro-bolometers, and particularly to an apparatus and method for providing compensation for microbolometer pixel non-uniformity in an array of such pixels.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
An infrared detector called the “bolometer,” now well known in the art, operates on the principle that the electrical resistance of the bolometer material changes with respect to the bolometer temperature, which in turn changes in response to the quantity of absorbed incident infrared radiation. These characteristics can be exploited to measure incident infrared radiation on the bolometer by sensing the resulting change in its resistance. When used as an infrared detector, the bolometer is generally thermally isolated from its supporting substrate or surroundings to allow the absorbed incident infrared radiation to generate a temperature change in the bolometer material, and be less affected by substrate temperature.
Modern microbolometer structures were developed by the Honeywell Corporation. By way of background, certain prior art uncooled, (i.e., not temperature stabilized) detectors and/or arrays, for example those manufactured by Honeywell, Inc., are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,286,976, and 5,300,915, and 5,021,663, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference. These detectors include those uncooled microbolometer detectors which have a two-level microbridge configuration: the upper level and lower level form a cavity that sensitizes the bolometer to radiation of a particular range of wavelengths; the upper level forms a “microbridge” which includes a thermal sensing element; the lower level includes the read-out integrated circuitry and reflective material to form the cavity; the upper microbridge is supported by legs which thermally isolate the upper level from the lower level and which communicate electrical information therein and to the integrated circuitry.
A list of references related to the aforesaid structure may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,420,419. The aforesaid patent describes a two-dimensional array of closely spaced microbolometer detectors which are typically fabricated on a monolithic silicon substrate or integrated circuit. Commonly, each of these microbolometer detectors are fabricated on the substrate by way of an, commonly referred to, air bridge structure which includes a temperature sensitive resistive element that is substantially thermally isolated from the substrate. This aforesaid microbolometer detector structure is herein referred to as a “thermally-isolated microbolometer.” The resistive element, for example may be comprised of vanadium oxide material that absorbs infrared radiation. The constructed air bridge structure provides good thermal isolation between the resistive element of each microbolometer detector and the silicon substrate. An exemplary microbolometer structure may dimensionally be in the order of approximately 50 microns by 50 microns.
In contrast, a microbolometer detector that is fabricated directly on the substrate, without the air-bridge structure, is herein referred to as a “thermally shorted microbolometer,” since the temperature of the substrate and/or package will directly affect it. Alternately, it may be regarded as a “heat sunk” pixel since it is shorted to the substrate.
Microbolometer detector arrays may be used to sense a focal plane of incident radiation (typically infrared). Each microbolometer detector of an array may absorb any radiation incident thereon, resulting in a corresponding change in its temperature, which results in a corresponding change in its resistance. With each microbolometer functioning as a pixel, a two-dimensional image or picture representation of the incident infrared radiation may be generated by translating the changes in resistance of each microbolometer into a time-multiplexed electrical signal that can be displayed on a monitor or stored in a computer. The circuitry used to perform this translation is commonly known as the Read Out Integrated Circuit (ROIC), and is commonly fabricated as an integrated circuit on a silicon substrate. The microbolometer array may then be fabricated on top of the ROIC. The combination of the ROIC and microbolometer array is commonly known as a microbolometer infrared Focal Plane Array (FPA). Microbolometer focal plane arrays that contain as many as 640×480 detectors have been demonstrated.
Individual microbolometers will have non-uniform responses to uniform incident infrared radiation, even when the bolometers are manufactured as part of a microbolometer FPA. This is due to small variations in the detectors' electrical and thermal properties as a result of the manufacturing process. These non-uniformities in the microbolometer response characteristics must be corrected to produce an electrical signal with adequate signal-to-noise ratio for image processing and display.
Under the conditions where a uniform electric signal bias source and incident infrared radiation are applied to an array of microbolometer detectors, differences in detector response will occur. This is commonly referred to as spatial non-uniformity, and is due to the variations in a number of critical performance characteristics of the microbolometer detectors. This is a natural result of the microbolometer fabrication process. The characteristics contributing to spatial non-uniformity include the infrared radiation absorption coefficient, resistance, temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR), heat capacity, and thermal conductivity of the individual detectors.
The magnitude of the response non-uniformity can be substantially larger than the magnitude of the actual response due to the incident infrared radiation. The resulting ROIC output signal is difficult to process, as it requires system interface electronics having a very high dynamic range. In order to achieve an output signal dominated by the level of incident infrared radiation, processing to correct for detector non-uniformity is required.
Methods for implementing an ROIC for microbolometer arrays have used an architecture wherein the resistance of each microbolometer is sensed by applying a uniform electric signal source, e.g., voltage or current sources, and a resistive load to the microbolometer element. The current resulting from the applied voltage is integrated over time by an amplifier to produce an output voltage level proportional to the value of the integrated current. The output voltage is then multiplexed to the signal acquisition system.
Gain and offset corrections are applied to the output signal to correct for the errors that may arise from the microbolometer property non-uniformities. This process is commonly referred to as two-point correction. In this technique two correction coefficients are applied to the sampled signal of each element. The gain correction is implemented by multiplying the output voltage by a unique gain coefficient. The offset correction is implemented by adding a unique offset coefficient to the output voltage. Both analog and digital techniques have been utilized to perform this two-point non-uniformity correction.
The current state-of-the-art in microbolometer array ROICs suffers from two principal problems. The first problem is that the larger arrays increase substrate temperature. A second problem is that a larger microbolometer introduces non-uniformities in the ROIC integrated circuit output signal thereby requiring a large instantaneous dynamic range in the sensor interface electronics that increases the cost and complexity of the system. Current advanced ROIC architectures, known in the art, incorporate part of the correction on the ROIC integrated circuit to minimize the instantaneous dynamic range requirements at the acquisition systems interface.
A technique for minimizing the effect of substrate temperature variations is to provide “cooling” of the substrate (i.e., substrate temperature stabilization) so as to maintain a substantially constant substrate temperature. One comm
Epps Georgia
Hasan M.
Infrared Solutions, Inc.
Pajak Robert A.
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