High sensitivity bolometers development

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Abstract
A main drawback of bolometers is their low responsivity resulting in very poor time and/or spatial resolutions. Improvement of detectors responsivity would serve to solve this problem and bolometers could be useful in studies of fast-developing phenomena in plasmas. We are searching for the development of new detectors based on a standard multilayer design and having as sensitive material amorphous germanium. The chosen detector structure is rigid substrate (low conductivity glass)/interdigitated electrodes (Ti-Au defined by photo- lithographic techniques)/resistor layer (amorphous oxygen-doped germanium evaporated by electron beam)/insulation layer (photo-CVD deposited Si3N4)/absorber foil (evaporated + electrolytic gold layers). The detector performance has been compared with pyroelectric detectors and germanium bolometers in the TJ-I tokamak under the same experimental conditions. Also, the design and construction of monolithic miniaturized detector arrays, based on this concept, are in progress.