With the development of linear imaging arrays have come many applications for them. In order to use them, however, their performance has had to be experimentally determined, in detail. In light of potentially, highly sophisticated applications for current state-of-the-art linear imaging arrays, specific parameters for a selected set of linear imaging arrays were measured. The measured parameters were those usually never, if ever at all, presented in open literature from the manufacturers of these arrays or even in some cases not even known by the manufacturer. The specific parameters measured in order to characterize these arrays included crosstalk, total energy variation across an element, peak responsivity variation across individual elements and the full array, precise individual element size deter-mination and precise straightness measurements of the array's elements. The experimental setup utilized a HeNe laser source (632.8 nm) with precision optics to deliver a focused spot size onto the array measured in microns, a commercially available interferometric dis-placement measurement system to measure the position of the array relative to the focused spot and a computer to assist in the data taking and reduction. Two specific applications that immediately benefited from the measurements on these arrays were a precision star tracker and a precision angle sensor,' both under some phase of development at Lockheed Missiles & Space Company.

Date Published: 8 November 1984
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 0501, State-of-the-Art Imaging Arrays and Their Applications, (8 November 1984); doi: 10.1117/12.944664

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0501:
State-of-the-Art Imaging Arrays and Their Applications
Keith N. Prettyjohns, Editor(s)