A distributed-line pyroelectric detector

A two-layer pyroelectric device is considered consisting of a pyroelectric layer on top of a photoconductive layer. The pyroelectric layer absorbs the far infrared radiation and the photoconductive layer absorbs the visible of near-infrared radiation. By making contacts along one side of each layer the device becomes a distributed-line detector. The signal and noise properties of the device are determined, and compared with the lumped-circuit detector in which the contacts cover both faces completely. The noise equivalent powers of both devices are identical at low freuqencies, but at higher frequencies a distributed line deterioration factor shows up in the first device that makes the performance less desirable.