Study Of Surface Plasmonic Infrared Antenna-coupled Nanobolometer

Surface plasmon(SP) has high local field enhancement and decays exponentially with the distance away from the interface. Devices based on the principle of SP can be used to adjust the light field energy in a sub-wavelength or nano region. This characteristic provides a guideline of designing new type of photoelectric devices, in which SP optical antenna is one of the most attractive researching fields. Vanadium oxide(VOX) film is one of the main heat-sensitive materials used to constitute microbolometer infrared detector. In this thesis, a new high-performance infrared detector based on SP optical antenna coupled with VOX nanowires is proposed.In this thesis, optical properties of optical antenna and VOX nanowire in the band 8 ~12?m has been studied, and then optical properties and thermal performance simulation of antenna coupled VOX is researched. The prototype devices were prepared to provide theoretical and experimental support for the further optimization of the device structure and process improvement.The main work is included as follows:(1) The performance of optical antenna are simulated by using multi-physics finite element simulation software. In the simulation the geometry parameters of an optical antenna(arm length, thickness and width), medium surrounding environment, and thickness of substrate layer are respectively simulated to find their influences on local field enhancement.(2) Optical characteristics and thermal characteristics of the antenna coupled VOX nanowires are investigated by taking into accout its structural parameters, coupling types,the metal reflective layer. The results show that above-mentioned means give a high improve on the absorption of VOX nanowires.(3) We designed the preparation process of infrared detector coupled with antenna,and prepared the prototype device according to the process. The electron beam lithography and coating process parameters are optimized in the process, and the metal interconnect problems in the device fabrication is resolved.