The design and fabrication of one-layer bimaterial micro-cantilever array made of silicon nitride(SiNx) and gold(Au) without Si substrate for uncooled optical readout infrared(IR) imaging system were presented.One-layer structure simplifies the fabrication process.IR thermal images can be obtained when the cantilever array is placed in the atmosphere.The experimental results with the micro-cantilever array of 140×98 elements and 12-bit CCD indicate that the objects at the temperature of higher than 120℃ can be detected and the noise-equivalent temperature difference(NETD) of the device is ~7K.The experimental results are well accordant with the thermomechanical design of microcantilever array.