SPRITE infrared detector
Encyclopedia
The SPRITE infrared detector is named after the process of signal integration carried out by "Signal Processing In The Element". The technique was invented at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment
at Malvern
by a team of scientists including Tom Elliott
.
The detector allows the build up of detected infrared
signal in a Cadmium Mercury Telluride photoconductor strip (CMT) by applying a bias current through the strip. The detector is used in a scanned thermal imager and the bias voltage is adjusted to force electron
s produced by the detected energy at one end of the strip to drift to the far end of the strip in time with the rate of the scanning such that energy from the same response is built up along the full length of the strip. This allows a much simpler way of integrating responses than linking separate detector cells.
This type of detector was used in a series of thermal imagers known as TICM (thermal imaging common modules). These modules were the mainstay of UK forces thermal imagers from the 1980s until their replacement by fully staring, two-dimensional-arrays detectors.
Royal Signals and Radar Establishment
The Royal Signals and Radar Establishment was a scientific research establishment within the Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom, located primarily at Malvern in Worcestershire. It was formed in 1976 in an amalgamation of earlier research establishments including the Royal Radar Establishment...
at Malvern
Malvern, Worcestershire
Malvern is a town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, governed by Malvern Town Council. As of the 2001 census it has a population of 28,749, and includes the historical settlement and commercial centre of Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, and the former...
by a team of scientists including Tom Elliott
C. Thomas Elliott
Charles Thomas Elliott , FRS, CBE, is a leading scientist in the fields of narrow gap semiconductor and infrared detector research. Hailing from county Durham, after gaining his Ph.D., he worked at the University of Manchester before joining RRE in Malvern, Worcestershire in the late 1960s...
.
The detector allows the build up of detected infrared
Infrared
Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...
signal in a Cadmium Mercury Telluride photoconductor strip (CMT) by applying a bias current through the strip. The detector is used in a scanned thermal imager and the bias voltage is adjusted to force electron
Electron
The electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge. It has no known components or substructure; in other words, it is generally thought to be an elementary particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton...
s produced by the detected energy at one end of the strip to drift to the far end of the strip in time with the rate of the scanning such that energy from the same response is built up along the full length of the strip. This allows a much simpler way of integrating responses than linking separate detector cells.
This type of detector was used in a series of thermal imagers known as TICM (thermal imaging common modules). These modules were the mainstay of UK forces thermal imagers from the 1980s until their replacement by fully staring, two-dimensional-arrays detectors.