Micro-Machined Heater Designed for Miniaturized Thermal IR Sources

In this paper, Thermal-Electrical Finite Element Method (FEM) has been utilized to model and analyze thermal distribution of a joule micro heater machined on a highly doped silicon substrate. The heater filament is made of Platinum (Pt) while the oxide layer is from Aluminum Oxide (Al2O3) for better adhesion to Pt. The thermal distribution as well as the temperature variation within the active area of different multi rings designs at different voltages are presented. Thermal-Electrical FEM simulations were conducted on three different designs single, double, and triple-rings filaments. Simulations show that triple-ring heater has the most uniform thermal radiation performance, which suggest make it a promising candidate design for miniaturized thermal IR sources.