Antenna-coupled nanowire thermocouples for infrared detection

Unbiased, uncooled, and frequency-selective antenna-coupled nanothermocouples have been fabricated and characterized for infrared detection. The relative Seebeck coefficient of the nanothermocouples was measured by the 2ω technique, which uses a test setup co-located on the same chip as the detectors. The hot junction of the nanothermocouple is less than 80 nm × 80 nm. The measured normalized detectivity (D*) is 1.94×10⁵ cm Hz^1/2/W.