Uncooled Tunable LWIR Microbolometers

Uncooled infrared detectors have significant potential capabilities that have been little explored. Micro-machined uncooled detectors with tunable spectral characteristics across the long-wave infrared (LWIR, λ~8-12 μm) have been developed. In the middle wavelength infrared (MWIR) and LWIR regions, the fabrication of Fabry-Perot filters is more complex because the optical materials must be infrared-compatible and the layer thicknesses must be larger. It is very difficult to build filters for uncooled LWIR thermal detectors, which has limited previous researchers to demonstrations of discretely tunable 2- or 3-color thermal detectors rather than continuously tunable ones.