Infrared sensing using pyroelectric polymers.
Alistair Armitage, K. Benjamin, Dadi Setiadi, Harald J. Weller, David Binnie · Research Output (Edinburgh Napier University) · 1997
This paper describes a programme of work intended to develop inexpensive infrared imagers. The technology is based on the pyroelectric effect in the polymer PVDF, and a copolymer of VDF and TrFE. Early work used films of the polymer on simple ceramic substrates. While this continues to be a useful approach, the use of silicon integrated circuit substrates provides possibilities of amplification as close as possible to the signal source. Several integrated circuits have been fabricated and tested, and some results are presented for these. A brief description is also provided of the thermal and electrical modelling.