What is a Thermopile? A Thermopile is a serially-interconnected array of Thermocouples. Each of the thermocouples are formed by the junction of two dissimilar materials. The array is placed across hot and cold regions of the structure with the hot junction thermally isolated from the cold junction. The cold junction would be placed on a silicon substrate for effective heat sinking. The hot junction is formed over a thin diaphragm that thermally isolates the hot and cold junctions. In hot regions, a black body absorbs the infrared energy, raising temperature according to the intensity of incident energy

