A monolithic light scattering particle CMOS sensor for integrated optics application

Abstract

Monolithic CMOS sensor Particulate matter (PM) pollution in the air seriously endangers human health. The concentration of PM becomes an important indicator of the air quality. Traditional PM detector is generally based on MCU system, in which an embedded algorithm is used for counting the number of the scattered pulses. In the paper, a monolithic light scattering particle CMOS sensor is proposed and designed. The novel PM sensor IC, which combines the photometer method with CMOS circuit, can replace the traditional embedded system, with the benefits of high speed, high precision while low cost. The designed sensor shows the detection speed less than 2 μs, the detection error less than 0.01 mg/m3, and the overall layout area less than 1 mm2. The novel particle CMOS sensor proposed in this paper shows rapid and high-precision detection, while also reducing the manufacturing cost. It can be applied widely in the particle sensing scenarios, including the air pollution and water quality checking, etc.