Development and Mechanical Modeling of Si1-XGex/Si MQW Based Uncooled Microbolometers in a 130 nm BiCMOS

This paper presents the development of process integration and mechanical modeling of a Si1-xGex/Si MQW based uncooled micro-bolometer. The recent progress on layer transfer based integration scheme of Si1-xGex/Si based micro-bolometer into a 130 nm BiCMOS process is presented. The two important parts of the process integration, namely the layer-transfer and stress compensation of the arms are studied. The initial successful results on layer transfer and the FEM modeling for the stress compensation of the thin and narrow arms of the bolometer is presented. Finally, the developed FEM model is compared with the fabricated cantilevers. The results show that the developed FEM model has a very good matching with the experimental results; thus very convenient to use for the FEM modeling of the full bolometer structure.