Chopper for staring infrared systems

摘要

Incident infrared radiation is focussed through a rotatable disk of germanium onto a detector array. The disk has a thickness many times the wavelengths of the incident radiation and is partly covered with a pattern of germanium one-half wavelength of some preselected wavelength of the incident radiation. The pattern is a regular array of mesas, and acts as a phase grating which diffracts incident radiation. The diffracted (or blurred) image on the detector array is used as a reference level for background suppression.