Determination of thermal parameters of microbolometers using a single electrical measurement

Accurate determination of thermal parameters of microbolometer-based sensors is of considerable interest for many applications. The most important parameters are thermal time constant, heat capacitance and thermal conductance. In this work, we have developed a technique to measure all three quantities using a single electrical measurement. The method involves the measurement of time dependent output voltage of a balanced Wheatstone bridge containing a microbolometer under pulse bias condition. The validity of the approach is verified experimentally using metal-him microbolometers. The experimental results are in excellent agreement with the theoretical analysis of the measurement technique. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.