EE 528 Optical Sources, Detectors, and Radiometry
- 1994-95 Catalog Data: 3 credits
- Fundamentals of optical sources, detectors, and radiometric measurements in
the visible and infrared. Radiometry of imaging and nonimaging optical systems,
including optical fibers. Detector preamplifiers, noise, NEP, D*, and optical
filters. Corequisite: an undergraduate optics course. Same as EE 478
with differentiated assignments for graduate students.
- Textbooks:
- Optical Radiation Detectors, by Dereniak and Crowe, Wiley.
- Reference:
- None.
- Coordinator:
- Michael K. Giles, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
- Goals:
- Students completing EE 528 should be able to analyze the light gathering
capabilities of an optical system. Furthermore, they should be able to
recognize and calculate the major sources of noise in the detection process,
enabling them to compute various figures of merit and evaluate which
optical/detector system is best for a particular application. The ultimate goal
of EE 528 is to teach students how to design optical/detector systems which
achieve a high signal to noise ratio.
- Prerequisites by Topic:
- Electromagnetic theory (Maxwell's Equations).
- Geometrical optics.
- Basic electronics and semiconductors.
- Topics:
- Review of geometric optics and electromagnetic theory.
- Laws of radiometry (calculation of radiance, irradiance, intensity, solid
angle, etc.).
- Blackbody radiation.
- Photon detectors (photodiodes, photomultipliers, photoconductors).
- Figures of merit (responsivity, NEP, detectivity, SNR, and D*) used in
design.
- Thermal detectors (bolometers, thermistors, thermopiles, pyroelectrics).
- Focal plane arrays/thermal imaging systems
- Computer Usage:
- Integrate Planck's equation for blackbody radiation for any source
temperature and within any wavelength interval.
- Modify program 1 to integrate the effective exitance radiated by a blackbody
into the design of an optical system, taking into account the detector's
responsivity or a given spectral filter function.
- Prepared by:
- Michael K. Giles
- Date: February 21, 1994