Thermopile sensor array for an electronic nose integrated non-selective NDIR gas detection system

The fabrication and characterization of a thermopile sensor array is described in this work. The device is intended to be part of a non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) gas detection system integrated in an electronic nose where each sensor is not oriented for the detection of a particular substance. Different designs were considered changing the size of the array (9 or 16 elements) and improving some specific detector performance parameters: responsivity and noise equivalent power (NEP). After device fabrication, the measurements of these parameters show a good agreement with the thermal one-dimensional model used for the design.