Traceable Radiometric Calibration of Semiconductor Detectors and their Application for Thermodynamic Temperature Measurement
- The non-contact measurement of temperature by using the emitted thermal radiation has been an innovative field of measurement science and fundamental physics for more than a hundred years. It saw the first highlight in Gustav Kirchhoff’s principle of a blackbody with ideal emission characteristics and culminated in Max Planck’s formulation of the law of thermal radiation, the so-called Planck’s law, forming the foundation of quantum physics. A boost in accuracy was the development of semiconductor detectors and the cryogenic electrical substitution radiometer in the late 1970s. Semiconductor detectors, namely photodiodes, deliver an electrical current proportional to the absorbed optical radiation. Due to the measurements of thermal radiation over a wide range of temperature and wavelength, thermodynamic temperature measurements with radiometric methods have set benchmarks to all, the …