Trends in Thermal Imaging

Most manufacturers of uncooled amorphous silicon (AS) and vanadium oxide (VOx) microbolometer focal plane array (FPA) products have long been producing imaging devices with 17 μm pixel-pitch arrays. Currently, 320 × 240 × 17 μm and 640 × 480 × 17 μm arrays are commonly available as FPA products, sensor cores, and numerous camera products. Several different designs of fixed focal length and continuous zoom optics based on these 17 μm pixel-pitch longwave infrared (LWIR) products are also available. There is general uniformity and compatibility throughout the industry between these camera products and optics which allows customers to choose from a wide array of sensor and optics attributes when developing a new camera product.