Nano-Antenna Coupled Infrared Detector Design

Abstract

Since the 1940s, infrared (IR) detection and imaging at wavelengths in the two atmospheric windows of 3 to 5 and 8 to 14 μm has been extensively researched. Through several generations, these detectors have undergone considerable developments and have found use in various applications in different fields including military, space science, medicine and engineering. For the most recently proposed generation, these detectors are required to achieve high-speed detection with spectral and polarization selectivity while operating at room temperature. Antenna coupled IR detectors appear to be the most promising candidate to achieve these requirements and has received substantial attention from research in recent years. This paper sets out to present a review of the antenna coupled IR detector family, to explore the main concepts behind the detectors as well as outline their critical and challenging design considerations. In this context, the design of both elements, the antenna and the sensor, will be presented individually followed by the challenging techniques in the impedance matching between both elements. Some hands-on fabrication techniques will then be explored. Finally, a discussion on the coupled IR detector is presented with the aim of providing some useful insights into promising future work.

Dynamic Absorption Enhancement and Equivalent Resonant Circuit Modeling of Tunable Graphene-Metal Hybrid Antenna

“…An arbitrary point f a is selected across the functioning bandwidth of the proposed antenna at 32.7 THz, with a minimum S 11 value of −5 dB. The quality factor is calculated while using Equation (33). From Figure 19a,b, it is clearly depicted that, for 0.1 ps, the variation in the coupling coefficient based on different chemical potential rises sharply, as the graphene with 0.1 ps hardly resonates due to having high impedance mismatching at the resonance frequency.…”

“…The approach based on full-wave numerical modeling is a method for characterizing the antenna performance. Still, with monoatomic thickness, it will surely require huge computing resources in the event when high accuracy is required during simulation [33]. The typical simulation method is quite complicated and it will hardly validate the basic theory principle of resonant antenna functionalities.…”

Thermoelectrically Coupled Nanoantennas for Solar Research

“…The nanothermocouple converts the heat to an electrical signal by the Seebeck effect. These devices are uncooled [4][5][6], frequency selective [7], polarization sensitive [8], fast [9] and operate without an external power supply [4]. They can be tailored to be sensitive from a few microns to sub-THz [7], a range of up to two orders of magnitude.…”

Temperature-Dependent Resistive Properties of Vanadium Pentoxide/Vanadium Multi-Layer Thin Films for Microbolometer & Antenna-Coupled Microbolometer Applications

“…Microbolometers and antenna-coupled microbolometers have found applications in infrared, terahertz, and millimeter wave sensing [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. Microbolometers are composed of several functional layers, namely: an absorber layer, a resistive thermometer layer, a thermal insulation layer, and a reflective layer.…”

“…The achieved resistivity values at high TCRs, however, cannot be matched to real antenna impedances (ranging typically between 50 and 300 Ω) in antenna-coupled microbolometer configurations. This fact obligated the use of low TCR metals as resistive thermometers in antenna-coupled microbolometer configurations [5,6,7,8,9,11,12], which is one of the main causes of the low responsivities in antenna-coupled microbolometers.…”