Solar magnetograph employing integrated diode arrays.
Abstract
A solar magnetograph employing as detectors a pair of self-scanning 512-element integrated diode arrays is described. Coupled to a 1.5-m telescope, photospheric flux as small as 50,000 trillion maxwells is detected. Measured photometric properties of the diode array are given including MTF as a function of wavelength, dark current as a function of temperature, completeness of readout, optical and electronic fixed-pattern noise. An integrating preamplifier is presented that achieves a measured noise, when connected to the array, equivalent to 950 electrons at the input for a bandwidth of 3,000 trillion Hz. These data provide a basis for evaluating the detector performance at low light levels beyond the needs of the magnetograph. Operated at near liquid nitrogen temperature, the noise and cooling characteristics indicate the detector has promise as a low light level sensor.
- Publication:
-
Applied Optics
- Pub Date:
- January 1976
- DOI:
- 10.1364/AO.15.000040
- Bibcode:
- 1976ApOpt..15...40L
- Keywords:
-
- Diodes;
- Integrated Circuits;
- Magnetometers;
- Solar Instruments;
- Solar Magnetic Field;
- Astronomical Photometry;
- Matrices (Circuits);
- Modulation Transfer Function;
- Optical Measuring Instruments;
- Remote Sensors;
- Signal To Noise Ratios;
- Solar Physics