Hexagonal Microbolometer Pixel for Flexible Substrates

Nature becomes a source of inspiration to many researches on imaging systems. Imaging features owned by biological forms such as high resolution, wide field of view, high depth of field, high sensitivity to motion and light are attractive reasons to mimic the nature in imaging system applications. In this study, an arthropod eye's hexagonal shaped ommatidia are taken as a model for uncooled microbolometer pixel structure. A hexagonal pixel with 34 um diagonal length which has the thermal conductance value of 1.48x10(-7) W/K and the time constant value of 0.69 ms is designed for the first time in literature. The pixels are estimated to have an NETD of less than 250 mK in a potential 384x288 microbolometer array.