INFRARED SENSOR AND INFRARED SENSOR ARRAY COMPRISING THE SAME

摘要

An infrared sensor has a heat-insulating structure provided on a silicon substrate through an electrically insulating layer. To eliminate the influence of temperature variation of the whole infrared sensor on the output of a first thermal infrared sensing element provided in the infrared sensor and comprising resistors and diodes connected together, a second temperature sensing element for measuring the temperature of the whole infrared sensor is provided in the infrared sensor. The difference between the outputs of the first and second sensing elements is converted into a current change from a MOSFET as the gate-source voltage change of the MOSFET, and the current change is outputted as the variation of the charged/discharged electricity of the capacitance of a capacitor connected to the MOSFET. Thus, the noise in the output of the infrared sensor is suppressed, and the performance of the infrared sensor is improved. An infrared sensor array comprises such infrared sensors and, as occasion arises, sensors for temperature compensation as mentioned above, one for each column. Therefore, the noise of the signal from the sensor array is suppressed and the performances of the sensors are improved.