Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids 338340 (2004) 744748 www.elsevier.

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IR bolometers based on amorphous silicon germanium alloys

M. Garc *, R. Ambrosio, A. Torres, A. Kosarev a
 Instituto Nacional de Astrof sica, Optica y Electrnica, INAOE, P.O. Box 51&216, Puebla Z.P. 72000, Mxico o e

Abstract In this work, we report the fabrication and characterization of bolometers based on amorphous silicon germanium alloys (aSi1 x Gex :H,F). The fabrication of microbolometers with thermally isolated a-SiGe thin lm as sensing layer, is described. Membrane-supported and bridge-supported detectors have been fabricated. Sensing layer is deposited by low frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition technique. Since this deposition is carried out at relative low temperature TD 573 K, the read-out IC fabricated on silicon substrate is not aected, providing compatibility with silicon IC technologies. Responsivity and detectivity were measured under illumination at dierent bias voltages. The thermal time constant, the thermal conductance and current noise are determined by means of the voltagetime curves. Responsivity and detectivity are observed to depend on the physical properties of the materials forming the device and on the device geometry. Obtained results of pixel resistance, thermal resistance and responsivity demonstrate a-SiGe:H,F like a material suitable for realizing high-performance microbolometers. 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
PACS: 73.61.Jc; 85.60.)q; 85.60.Dw; 85.85.+j

1. Introduction The use of micromachining techniques has greatly increased the detectivity of thermal infrared (IR) detectors like bolometers. These techniques enable the thermal insulation of the device to be increased, maximizing the temperature increase due to the absorption of IR radiation. Bolometers present several advantages over semiconductor diodes, such as uncooled operation close to ambient temperature and providing cheap detector technologies in compact systems. Resistive bolometers are formed by a temperaturedependent resistor and an IR absorber. The resistor should have a large temperature coecient of resistance, which is dened as TCR 1=RdR=dT , so a small temperature increase results in a signicant change in the bolometer resistance. In order to increase sensitivity, a good thermal insulation of the detector is needed. Membrane-supported detector and bridge-supported detectors have been developed in order to get such thermal insulation. Typical membrane material are silicon nitride or silicon oxide. Metals like platinum and
*

Corresponding author. E-mail address: luz@inaoep.mx (M. Garc a).

nickel, semiconductors like vanadium oxide, superconductors and non-crystalline material have been used as sensing element. However metals present a very low TCR, vanadium oxide is not a standard material in IC technology and superconductors need special temperature conditions. For room temperature operation, amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) has been used in commercial applications [13], however it presents a very high resistivity. In order to reduced it, boron doping is used but this results in lower activation energy (Ea ) and consequently in lower TCR [4]. Previous studies of a-Si1 x Gex :H,F (x 0; . . . ; 1) thick lms have demonstrated this material as a good candidate as the active material of uncooled microbolometer, due to its relatively high activation energy, Ea 0:4 eV, and therefore, a high TCR and moderate resistivity at room temperature, rRT 2:5 103 X1 cm1 [5,6,9]. Additionally, the complete process of fabrication of a bolometer using these lms is performed at low temperature (T 573 K). This temperature is compatible with standard processes of silicon IC fabrication, which makes this process an excellent candidate for the fabrication of 2-D arrays of microbolometers. In this work, the process of fabrication of membranesupported and bridge-supported microbolometers using

0022-3093/$ - see front matter 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jnoncrysol.2004.03.082

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a-Si1 x Gex :H,F (x 0; . . . ; 1) as the sensing material is described. Characterization of the fabricated structure is presented and the measured characteristics are compared with other recent published results.

2. Fabrication process description Two dierent congurations for thermal isolation were used in fabricated devices: membrane-supported structure and bridge-supported structure. The fabrication process of both structures is briey summarized in the following. For the membrane-supported structure, the initial substrate is a p-type crystalline silicon wafer, in which a 1 lm-thick SiO2 layer was thermally grown. Later, a 0.1 lm-thick a-Si3 N4 layer was deposited on the polished side of substrate by mean of low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD). A mask is used to dene the diaphragm by removing the c-silicon by wet chemical etching in a bulk-micromachining process. Once the diaphragm is formed, aluminum (Al) is e-beam deposited and etched for patterning the connection lines, pads and contacts for the sensing layer. On top of this, the active element material deposition is performed. The sensing layer itself is made by depositing 0.1 lm of aGe:H,F by low frequency (LF) PECVD at temperature of TD 573 K, a pressure PD 0:6 Torr, a power W 350 W. A mixture of GeF4 and H2 was used for the deposition of a-Ge:H,F. After this, a 0.19 lm thick aSi3 N4 layer was deposited by LF-PECVD on top of the sensing layer. Finally, the sensing and the a-Si3 N4 layers were etched to dene the active area of the device. Fig. 1(a) and (b) show the top and bottom view of the fabricated diaphragm-supported structure and the cross section is depicted in Fig. 1(c). The fabrication process of bridge-supported detector consists of depositing the active and supporting layer onto a sacricial layer, which is etched away to form a bridge. First, a 1 lm-thick SiO2 layer was deposited on the p-type substrate. Deposition of an Al sacricial layer of 2.5 lm thick is performed. A lithographic step to dene the bumps which will dene the bridge dimension is made. Later, a deposition of a 0.7 lm-thick layer of aSi3 N4 :H by PECVD is made, this will be the mechanical support and will provide thermal isolation to the sensing layer. Reactive ion etching (RIE) was performed on aSi3 N4 :H for patterning the bridge and the sacricial layer was removed by wet etching. At this point the bridge structure is formed. Active layer was formed by deposition of a 0.6 lm-thick layer of a-Si1 x Gex H,F (x 0:9) by LF-PECVD at temperature TD 573 K, at pressure PD 0:6 Torr, and a frequency fD 110 kHz. Deposition was made from a mixture of SiH4 + GeH4 . The activation energy of sensing layer is Ea 0:29 eV, and the electrical conductivity is rRT 2 103 X1 cm1 . A 0.13 lm-thick a-Si3 N4 :H layer was depos-

Fig. 1. Diagrams of the membrane-supported detector structure: (a) Back-side view through SiO2 membrane on a Si substrate. There are two structures of dierent size on the diaphragm. (b) Top-view of an a-Ge:H,F microbolometer on the membrane. (c) Cross-section of the membrane-supported microbolometer.

ited by LF-PECVD on top of the sensing layer. Etching the a-SiGe:H,F/Si3 N4 by RIE was the following step to dene the active area of the sensor. The next step was the opening of contacts through the a-Si3 N4 layer by RIE. Finally Al was e-beam deposited and patterned on the active area of the sensor forming the electrical contacts to the sensor. The top view of a device is shown in Fig. 2(a). The active area of the sensing layers was 100 100 lm2 , as shown in Fig. 2(a). A sketch of the fabricated bridge structure is shown in Fig. 2(b).

Fig. 2. Diagrams of the bridge-supported detector structure: (a) Topview of an a-SiGe bridge-supported microbolometer. (b) Cross-section of the microbolometer.

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M. Garc et al. / Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids 338340 (2004) 744748 a

3. Characterization of the bolometers Among the gures of merit which dene the performance of bolometers are the responsivity and the detectivity. The responsivity is dened as the signal generated per unit incident power. For the case of bolometers, the generated signal is an electrical signal, voltage or current, and the incident power (Pinc ) was taken as the input signal. The output signal, when device is voltage-biased, was obtained from the dierence in current produced by the incident power on the device: Iout Iir Idark ; and responsivity is expressed as RI Iout : Pinc 2 1

and measuring the voltage drop using a oscilloscope and determining the time to reach the steady state. The s measured for the membrane-supported bolometer was 500800 ms, and that one for the bridge-supported structure was 300500 ms. The thermal conductance was measured by applying a current pulse. The voltage drop on the bolometer (Vb ) and the current (Ib ) owing through it were measured. A power W Ib Vb is dissipated in the bolometer. For a bias pulse of duration much longer than the s, the steady state is reached, and then W and G are related by W GTb T0 ; 4 where Tb is the bolometer temperature at the steady state and T0 is the room temperature. Tb is estimated from [7] Tb T0 1 kTa0 ln E h
RTb RT0

In this way, responsivity of four devices of both structures were calculated. The values of responsivity of the devices at dierent voltages are presented in Fig. 3. Thermal behavior of a bolometer is characterized by its thermal conductance (G) and its thermal capacitance (C), and both parameters determine the response time through the thermal time constant (s) of the bolometer, which is dened as the following relationship: s C : 3 G Measurements of voltagetime curves for determining these thermal characteristics were performed in vacuum at pressure Pm 3 mTorr. Thermal time constant was measured by applying a current pulse to the bolometer

i:

The resistance of the bolometer RT0 is calculated as Vb =Ib , when the bias pulse is very narrow, in such a way that the structure is not heated, and RTb is calculated in the same way when steady state is reached. G was estimated from equation (4). The thermal conductance measured in this way was G 2 107 W/K for the membrane-supported structure and G 5 107 W/K for the bridge-supported structure. Since equation (3), thermal capacitance can be estimated from calculated values of s and G. Then, for the membrane-supported

/ W)
Responsivity R ( mA / W )

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6 5 1 Responsivity Inoise 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 4 3 0.1 2 1

Detectivity D ( cm Hz

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Fig. 3. Responsivity of several devices in function of applied voltage. The IR incident power Pinc 107 nW from a black body radiator at T 1123 K. (a) Responsivity of membrane-supported detector. (b) Responsivity of bridge-supported detector.

Voltage V ( V )

Fig. 4. Detectivity as a function of applied voltage for several a-SiGe bolometers: (a) Detectivity of membrane-supported detector. (b) Detectivity of bridge-supported detector.

M. Garc et al. / Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids 338340 (2004) 744748 a Table 1 Comparison of uncooled microbolometers Characteristics Units Syllaios et al. [1] Iborra et al. [9] Liang et al. [10] Present work Membranesupported structure Temperature-sensing material Activation energy, Ea TCR, a Pixel area, Ab Pixel resistance, Rb Thermal resistance Thermal time constant, sth Responsivity, RV Responsivity, RI Spectral response Detectivity, D a-Si:H,B eV K1 lm2 X K W1 ms V W1 A W1 lm cm Hz1=2 W1 0.22 0.028 48 48 3 107 4 107 11 106 514 Gex Si1 x Oy 0.1850.316 0.0240.04 100 100 (1.26.4) 105 5 105 1.82 50380 (at 100 nA bias) 4.8 107 5.6 106 Poly-SiGe )0.145 0.0140.022 40 40 3.5 105 16.6 1.6 104 8.3 108 a-Si1 x Gex :H,F x 1 (a-Ge) 0.4 0.051 60 60 109 5 106 100800 4.2 106 6.2 103 214 2.6 106

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Bridge-supported structure a-Si1 x Gex :H x 0:9 0.29 0.037 100 100 3 107 2 106 300500 1.9 106 at I 550 nA 8.6 102 at V 7V 214 1 105

structure C 1:2 107 J/K, and for the bridge-supported structure C 2 107 J/K. Detectivity relates several parameters of detectors in order to compare performances of dierent devices, and it is dened as p R Ad p ; D 6 Inoise = Df where R is the detector responsivity, Ad is the detector area (60 60 lm2 for membrane-supported structure and 100 100 lm2 for the bridge-supported structure), Inoise is the noise current, and Df represents the bandwidth frequency. The calculated detectivity, from experimental responsivity measurements for each one of the structures at dierent biasing voltage, is presented in Fig. 4. The noise current depends on the voltage bias and has values ranging from 15 pA for a voltage range from 2 to 8 V for the membrane-supported. Noise current of the bridge-supported structures is one order magnitude higher than that of the membrane-supported structure. The obtained characteristics are compared with those presented by Syllaos et al. [1], Iborra et al. [7] and Liang et al. [8], the comparison is presented in Table 1. Pixel resistance of membrane-supported detector has not been optimized, but its TCR is the highest of the compared devices. Higher conductivity is observed when doping the a-Si:H sensitive layer, but it also yields a lower TCR. Our a-Si1 x Gex bridge-supported structure overcomes this disadvantage, it presents the same pixel resistance as in [1], and a high TCR since doping is not used. Additionally, the obtained thermal resistance of both structures is comparable to the one reported in other papers. Detectivity of studied microbolometers is

lower than the reported values, this is due to the high noise of our structure. At this point of the work we have shown that the sensing material here proposed will oer a better alternative for the fabrication of 2-D monolithic arrays for IR image detection than that used for comparison in this work. A future work is the reduction of the noise and resistance of the pixel by improving the quality of the ohmic contacts to our materials.

4. Conclusions Microbolometers with thermo-sensing layer made of a-SiGe-based lms have been fabricated in two dierent congurations: the membrane-supported structure and the bridge-supported structure. Activation energy and conductivity of sensing layer provide high TCR. The process of fabrication is fully compatible with the IC standard process of fabrication. Performance characteristics of the fabricated devices have been studied and present values comparable with those reported for similar materials, which present a-SiGe based lms as a good candidates for IR uncooled microbolometers. Work in order to reduce noise and improve thermal isolation is needed.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Mr Mauro Landa for his help during the technical preparation of the samples. M.G. also acknowledges CONACYT for support granted through scholarship #128942.

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M. Garc et al. / Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids 338340 (2004) 744748 a [6] A. Kosarev, A. Torres, R. Ambrosio, C. Zuniga, Y. Hernandez, A.S. Abramov, in: VII International Workshop on Non Crystalline Solids, February 1214, Mxico, 2003, p. 65 (Abstracts). e [7] E. Iborra, M. Clement, L.V. Herrero, J. Sangrador, J. Microelectromech. Syst. 11 (4) (2002) 322. [8] D. Liang, Y. Rui-Feng, L. Li-Tian, Chin. Phys. Lett. 20 (5) (2003) 770. [9] A. Torres, A. Kosarev, R. Ambrosio, M. Garc in: VII Internaa, tional Workshop on Non Crystalline Solids, February 1214, Mxico, 2003, p. 129 (Abstracts). e

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