Infrared thermography technology - past, present and future

摘要

What is infrared thermography? The word 'thermography' refers to the graphical or visual representation of heat. So what is heat? In physics, it is a form of energy associated with the movement of atoms and molecules in any material. The higher the temperature of a material, the faster the atoms are moving and hence the greater the amount of energy present as heat. The technology of in frared thermography has evolved greatly since Sir William Herschel discovered infrared radiation in 1800. It is extremely important to note that while Sir Herschel did discover infrared energy, using a thermometer to identify it, he did not discover how to measure it. This credit goes to Max Planck, who developed the blackbody equations and quantised the measurement of infrared radiation. The most important aspect of this is that infrared cameras do not measure temperature; they measure radiosity: a visualisation of the distribution of radiation that is received by the camera's detector.