Infrared Thermopile Sensors with in-Situ Integration of Composite Nanoforests for Enhanced Optical Absorption

In this work, a micromachining-compatible process, which can achieve in-situ integration of composite nanoforests (CNFs) onto infrared thermopile sensors, is proposed. As the CNFs are with high optical absorption, after integration, sensitivity of the sensors was improved by more than 30%, while their response time was almost kept unchanged. It is expected such CNFs and their facile integration approach can also be used in other infrared devices, including uncooled infrared focal plane arrays.