Abstract

Astronomical instruments operating in the infrared–millimeter region often require internal sources for detector monitoring, instrument calibration, and health checking. We describe the design, modeling, and experimental evaluation of thermal emitters with a fast speed of response and low-power dissipation, suitable for the far-infrared–submillimeter region. The development of an internal illuminator for the Herschel Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) satellite instrument is used as an example of the optimization of the design to meet particular requirements. A prototype illuminator design for SPIRE has been developed that, for a power dissipation of 1.5 mW, provides an equivalent blackbody temperature of 45 K with a 90% settling time of 220 ms.

© 2005 Optical Society of America

Quantum-statistical analysis of multimode far-infrared and submillimeter-wave astronomical interferometers

Stafford Withington, Michael P. Hobson, and George Saklatvala
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 22(9) 1937-1946 (2005)

Photon noise in photometric instruments at far-infrared and submillimeter wavelengths

J. M. Lamarre
Appl. Opt. 25(6) 870-876 (1986)

Fast computation of the Narcissus reflection coefficient for the Herschel far-infrared/submillimeter-wave Cassegrain telescope

Robert L. Lucke, Jacqueline Fischer, Arturo M. Polegre, and Douwe A. Beintema
Appl. Opt. 44(28) 5947-5955 (2005)

Hinge spectrometer: a grating Fabry-Perot instrument for far-infrared/submillimeter spectroscopy in space

Martin Harwit, Paul J. Viscuso, Gordon J. Stacey, and Charles Fuller
Appl. Opt. 26(4) 669-675 (1987)

Beam profile for the Herschel–SPIRE Fourier transform spectrometer

Gibion Makiwa, David A. Naylor, Marc Ferlet, Carl Salji, Bruce Swinyard, Edward Polehampton, and Matthijs H. D. van der Wiel
Appl. Opt. 52(16) 3864-3875 (2013)