Electro-optical characterization of TEC-less ASELSAN SAFIR640 microbolometer FPA

Microbolometer detector development and production processes have been studied intensely at ASELSAN for the last several years. Researches have been conducted so as to develop uncooled Focal Plane Arrays (FPAs) with high resolution and smaller pixel pitch. Test results show that SAFIR640 detectors have high performance level and low time constant which make them ideal for military and civilian applications. SAFIR640 microfabrication has been performed on 8’’ CMOS ROIC wafers which are also designed by ASELSAN. A double layer 17 μm pitch microbolometer structure is designed with an active material layer of VOx. 640×480 format SAFIR640 detectors with high TCR and low noise level are successfully fabricated and integrated into a TEC-less system. The produced detectors have low NETD (<30 mK) and low time constant values (<12 ms) values according to the test results. In this paper, electro-optical characterizations and the performance measurements of the SAFIR640 detectors have been presented.