High dynamic range measurement of spectral responsivity and linearity of a radiation thermometer using a super-continuum laser and LEDs
To realize the temperature scale above the freezing point of silver according to the definition of ITS-90, the dynamic range of the spectral responsivity is one of the most important factors which limit its uncertainty. When the residual spectral response at both side bands of a spectral band is not negligible, a significant uncertainty can be caused by a low dynamic range of the spectral responsivity measurement. In general, incandescent lamps are used to measure the spectral responsivity and the linearity. The dynamic range of the spectral responsivity measurement is often limited by a trade-off with the desired spectral resolution, which is less than 6 decades. Nonlinearity is another limiting fact of uncertainties of the temperature scale. Tungsten lamps have disadvantage in the nonlinearity measurements in terms of adjustability of radiance level and spectral selectivity. We report spectral responsivity measurements of which the measurable dynamic range is enhanced 50 times after replacing a QTH lamp with a super continuum laser. We also present a spectrally selected linearity measurement over a wide dynamic range using high-brightness light emitting diode arrays to observe a slight saturation of linearity.