Single crystal silicon micromachined pulsed infrared light source

Abstract

We have newly developed a single crystal silicon micromachined pulsed infrared light source, with a microbridge. The chip size is 2/spl times/1/spl times/0.35 mm/sup 3/. The microbridge size is 365/spl times/85/spl times/1.5 /spl mu/m/sup 3/. We can easily control the temperature of silicon microbridge by pulsed electric signal up to the frequency range of 2 kHz. The modulated temperature is more than 700/spl deg/C at 100 Hz and 100/spl deg/C at 2 kHz. The thermal time constant is 0.4 msec. We measured transient temperature distribution of microbridge. We estimate performance of infrared light source from these results.