Enhancing the Responsivity of Uncooled Infrared Detectors Using Plasmonics for High-Performance Infrared Spectroscopy

Amr Shebl Ahmed; Hye Jin Kim; Jinsik Kim; Kyo Seon Hwang; Seonghwan Kim

doi:10.3390/s17040908

Enhancing the Responsivity of Uncooled Infrared Detectors Using Plasmonics for High-Performance Infrared Spectroscopy

Sensors (Basel). 2017 Apr 20;17(4):908. doi: 10.3390/s17040908.

Authors

Amr Shebl Ahmed¹, Hye Jin Kim², Jinsik Kim³, Kyo Seon Hwang⁴, Seonghwan Kim⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada. shebl99@gmail.com.
² Center for BioMicrosystems, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul 02792, Korea. T12555@kist.re.kr.
³ Department of Medical Biotechnology, Dongguk University, Seoul 10326, Korea. lookup2@dongguk.edu.
⁴ Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Korea. k.hwang@khu.ac.kr.
⁵ Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada. sskim@ucalgary.ca.

Abstract

A lead zirconate titanate (PZT;Pb(Zr_0.52Ti_0.48)O₃) layer embedded infrared (IR) detector decorated with wavelength-selective plasmonic crystals has been investigated for high-performance non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) spectroscopy. A plasmonic IR detector with an enhanced IR absorption band has been designed based on numerical simulations, fabricated by conventional microfabrication techniques, and characterized with a broadly tunable quantum cascade laser. The enhanced responsivity of the plasmonic IR detector at specific wavelength band has improved the performance of NDIR spectroscopy and pushed the limit of detection (LOD) by an order of magnitude. In this paper, a 13-fold enhancement in the LOD of a methane gas sensing using NDIR spectroscopy is demonstrated with the plasmonic IR detector.

Keywords: MEMS; gas sensing; infrared detector; plasmonics.