Computer simulation of temperature field of multilayer pyroelectric thin film IR detector

Multilayer pyroelectric thin film IR detector uses the pyroelectric effect to transform temperature variation to corresponding electrical signal. Large temperature variation rate in pyroelectric film is very important for high response of the pyroelectric thin film IR detector. In this paper, a finite element modeling (FEM) using ANSYS applied to simulate the temperature field of multilayer pyroelectric thin film IR detector. The results show that the porous silica film as a thermal-insulation layer obviously reduced the heat loss due to the conduction of heat from the pyroelectric film to the Si substrate. Temperature variation rate in pyroelectric film with 6 mum porous SiO2 film is one order of magnitude higher than those without porous silica film. Other factors that influence temperature variation rate in pyroetectric film are also discussed. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.