Application of cooled IR focal plane arrays in thermographic cameras

The usage of cooled IR Focal Plane Array detectors in thermographic or radiometric thermal imaging cameras, respectively, leads to special demands on these detectors, which are discussed in this paper. For a radiometric calibration of wide temperature measuring ranges from -40 up to 2,000 °C, a linear and time-stable response of the photodiode array has to be ensured for low as well as high radiation intensities. The maximum detectable photon flux is limited by the allowed shift of the photodiode’s bias that should remain in the linear part of the photodiode’s I(V) curve even for the highest photocurrent. This limits the measurable highest object temperature in practice earlier than the minimum possible integration time. Higher temperature measuring ranges are realized by means of neutral or spectral filters. Defense and Security applications normally provide images at the given ambient temperature with small hot spots. The usage of radiometric thermal imagers for thermography often feature larger objects with a high temperature contrast to the background. This should not generate artifacts in the image, like pixel patterns or stripes. Further issues concern the clock regime or the sub-frame capabilities of the Read-Out-Circuit and the frame rate dependency of the signal. We will briefly describe the demands on the lens design for thermal imaging cameras when using cooled IR Focal Plane Array detectors with large apertures.