Characterization of infrared detectors for space applications

Over the past decade, AEROSPATIALE has become Europe's leader in the field of optical payloads for space applications. This leadership was made possible by AEROSPATIALE's will to develop the assets required for mastering the key performances of optical payloads, i.e. geometrical, modulation transfer function, radiometric and spectral performances. Infrared detectors have a heavy weigh in the performances of infrared payloads, and this leaded AEROSPATIALE to perform very accurate characterization of infrared detectors. This paper looks at those figures of merit of infrared detectors which are of interest to optical payload's performances. These parameters are detector sensitivity and associated dispersions, temporal noise and associated dispersions, contributors to spatial noise (pixel to pixel variation of non linearity, spectral response, 1/f noise, dark level variation versus temperature,...), frequency response, modulation transfer function, geometrical detector performances. The techniques required for detector characterizations compliant with the required accuracies for each of these parameters are described. Performances of test benches available at AEROSPATIALE are presented, with associated performances: vacuum chambers and cooling test sets, optical sources for radiometric and MTF measurements, electronics for detector power supply, clock generation, video and image processing.© (1996) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.