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Far-Infrared Bolometers: Technical Lineages

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Inventing a Space Mission

Part of the book series: ISSI Scientific Report Series ((ISSI,volume 14))

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Abstract

Bolometers are used as detectors in the Herschel SPIRE and PACS instruments. This chapter focuses on the history of bolometer development leading to the SPIRE and PACS detectors, operating in the submillimetre and far-infrared wavelength ranges. This historical and technological review describes the main technical lineages of bolometers and how the SPIRE and PACS instruments on Herschel, respectively, employed both an adapted and improved variant of a well-established technology and a novel bolometer architecture developed especially for the mission.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    NEFD is the overall NEP divided by the aperture area of the telescope, the bandwidth of the instrument, the atmospheric transmission if on earth, and various parameters characterising the optics transmission and coupling to incident radiation . In astronomy, it is often expressed in terms of Jansky (Jy) with 1 Jy = 10–26 W m–2 Hz–1.

  2. 2.

    Aperture efficiency is defined as the fraction of the power from a point source that is coupled to the detector by the optical system.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Département d’astrophysique/Irfu, CEA Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Vincent Minier

  2. International Space Science Institute, Bern, Switzerland

    Roger-Maurice Bonnet & Sergio Volonte

  3. Larsim/Irfu, CEA Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Vincent Bontems

  4. ESO-Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile

    Thijs de Graauw

  5. School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Matt Griffin

  6. SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research & University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Frank Helmich

  7. European Space Agency, ESTEC, Scientific Support Office, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

    Göran Pilbratt

Authors
  1. Vincent Minier
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  2. Roger-Maurice Bonnet
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  3. Vincent Bontems
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  4. Thijs de Graauw
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  7. Göran Pilbratt
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  8. Sergio Volonte
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Minier, V. et al. (2017). Far-Infrared Bolometers: Technical Lineages. In: Inventing a Space Mission. ISSI Scientific Report Series, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60024-6_7

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