Browsing by Author "Tanrikulu, M. Y."

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Open Access
An all-ZnO microbolometer for infrared imaging
(Elsevier BV, 2014) Kesim, Y. E.; Battal, E.; Tanrikulu, M. Y.; Okyay, Ali Kemal
Microbolometers are extensively used for uncooled infrared imaging applications. These imaging units generally employ vanadium oxide or amorphous silicon as the active layer and silicon nitride as the absorber layer. However, using different materials for active and absorber layers increases the fabrication and integration complexity of the pixel structure. In order to reduce fabrication steps and therefore increase the yield and reduce the cost of the imaging arrays, a single layer can be employed both as the absorber and the active material. In this paper, we propose an all-ZnO microbolometer, where atomic layer deposition grown zinc oxide is employed both as the absorber and the active material. Optical constants of ZnO are measured and fed into finite-difference-time-domain simulations where absorption performances of microbolometers with different gap size and ZnO film thicknesses are extracted. Using the results of these optical simulations, thermal simulations are conducted using finite-element-method in order to extract the noise equivalent temperature difference (NETD) and thermal time constant values of several bolometer structures with different gap sizes, arm and film thicknesses. It is shown that the maximum performance of 171 mK can be achieved with a body thickness of 1.1 μm and arm thickness of 50 nm, while the fastest response with a time constant of 0.32 ms can be achieved with a ZnO thickness of 150 nm both in arms and body. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Open Access
Atomic layer deposition synthesized TiOx thin films and their application as microbolometer active materials
(AVS Science and Technology Society, 2016) Tanrikulu, M. Y.; Rasouli, H. R.; Ghaffari, M.; Topalli K.; Okyay, Ali Kemal
This paper demonstrates the possible usage of TiOx thin films synthesized by atomic layer deposition as a microbolometer active material. Thin film electrical resistance is investigated as a function of thermal annealing. It is found that the temperature coefficient of resistance values can be controlled by coating/annealing processes, and the value as high as -9%/K near room temperature is obtained. The noise properties of TiOx films are characterized. It is shown that TiOx films grown by atomic layer deposition technique could have a significant potential to be used as a new active material for microbolometer-based applications. © 2016 American Vacuum Society.
Open Access
Atomic-layer-deposited zinc oxide as tunable uncooled infrared microbolometer material
(Wiley-VCH Verlag, 2014) Battal, E.; Bolat, S.; Tanrikulu, M. Y.; Okyay, Ali Kemal; Akin, T.
ZnO is an attractive material for both electrical and optical applications due to its wide bandgap of 3.37 eV and tunable electrical properties. Here, we investigate the application potential of atomic-layer-deposited ZnO in uncooled microbolometers. The temperature coefficient of resistance is observed to be as high as-10.4% K-1 near room temperature with the ZnO thin film grown at 120 °C. Spectral noise characteristics of thin films grown at various temperatures are also investigated and show that the 120 °C grown ZnO has a corner frequency of 2 kHz. With its high TCR value and low electrical noise, atomic-layer-deposited (ALD) ZnO at 120 °C is shown to possess a great potential to be used as the active layer of uncooled microbolometers. The optical properties of the ALD-grown ZnO films in the infrared region are demonstrated to be tunable with growth temperature from near transparent to a strong absorber. We also show that ALD-grown ZnO can outperform commercially standard absorber materials and appears promising as a new structural material for microbolometer-based applications. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.
Open Access
LWIR all-atomic layer deposition ZnO bilayer microbolometer for thermal imaging
(SPIE, 2017) Poyraz, M.; Gorgulu, K.; Sisman, Z.; Tanrikulu, M. Y.; Okyay, Ali Kemal
We propose an all-ZnO bilayer microbolometer, operating in the long-wave infrared regime that can be implemented by consecutive atomic layer deposition growth steps. Bilayer design of the bolometer provides very high absorption coefficients compared to the same thickness of a single ZnO layer. High absorptivity of the bilayer structure enables higher performance (lower noise equivalent temperature difference and time constant values) compared to single-layer structure. We observe these results computationally by conducting both optical and thermal simulations. © 2017 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).