Electrothermal analysis of a TEC-less IR microbolometer detector including self-heating and thermal drift

The article presents the results of modelling and experiments of the self-heating and thermal drift effects of microbolometric sensors of infrared radiation. The developed electrothermal model of the readout electronic circuit generates the power dissipated in the active microbolometer during row-by-row scanning implemented in the focal plane array (FPA) detector. Two approaches to thermal modelling are presented. Both 1D frequency domain and 2D time domain finite element method models allow estimation of the thermal behaviour of an FPA microbolometer. The modelling and presented experiment results lead to the estimation of the deterioration in FPA performance and allow definition of the basic limits of resistive bolometers in operation.