2D Material-Based Bolometer

Measurement of thermal radiation through uncooled bolometers is at the heart of many industrial applications. From the development of the Honey- well silicon microstructure developed in 1982, no particular change in paradigm was recorded. The advent of 2D-materials offers a whole new promising future for bolometric measurements and thermal detection. 2D-materials have record properties extremely sensitive to external stimuli making them great candidates for boosting bolometers performance. In this work, a method to model, fabricate and characterise 2D material- based bolometers is presented. The proposed design uses a suspended 2D- material beam as thermal sensor and IR absorber. The model suggests an im- provement of the state of the art on three different aspects. Reduction of thermal losses, tunable enhancement of absorption and increased bandwidth. An inno- vative read-out technique is also suggested. Bolometers employing graphene as suspended beam were successfully fab- ricated. An optimised fabrication process is proposed and allow to consistently produce devices having optimal properties to host graphene. Electrical mea- surements on graphene beams lying on silicon dioxide showed good tunability of graphene resistance through electrostatic gating proving possible to enhance thermal radiation absorption in graphene. The results obtained offers a promis- ing outlook toward the future of 2D material-based bolometers.