An approach for the performance analysis of an uncooled infrared bolometer imager

摘要

As an approach for analyzing an uncooled infrared bolometer imager, a method is introduced whichsupposes that a thermal system is built into the infrared radiation detection mechanism. In thisanalysis, the bi-directional radiation energy flows between two thermal elements are considered anda radiation thermal conductance between them is defined. Based on the values of the radiation thermalconductances and conventional material thermal conductance, an equivalent thermal circuit for abolometer detector element is extracted. Calculations were carried out using software written in visualC++. The analysis shows a Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference (NETD) of 50 mK is obtained as atypical value, assuming that no additional noise other than temperature fluctuation noise exists, andthat the NETD becomes better as the system time constant built into the equivalent thermal circuitincreases.