Spectral shift of infrared LEDs and resistive sources

The Space Chambers at the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) are continually exploring new technologies to improve their characterization, calibration, and mission simulation testing capabilities for imaging sensors. Part of this task is to develop and integrate methods to simulate high-temperature sources (on the order of 3,000 K) while maintaining the integrity of the low radiometric background within the cryovacuum chambers. The High Temperature Source Simulator project at AEDC is exploring the use of laser diodes, LEDs, and resistive sources of varying IR wavelengths to simulate these high-temperature sources within AEDC's Space Chambers. A brief summary of previous work will be presented with a more detailed discussion of the recent cryospectral shift of the tested sources. We found that the IR LEDs spectrally shift up to about 20% from their ambient center wavelength while the resistive sources do not shift at all (as expected). Several different resistive sources as well as LEDs of varying wavelengths have been procured and will continue to be tested.