Design and optimization of the calibration procedure for a miniaturized Fourier transform spectrometer

This paper presents a Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrometer calibration procedure based on an unusual source made from a spectrally selective surface. An alternative solution to the usual calibrators has been developed to cope with the tight mass budget of an instrument devoted to Mars surface exploration. The designed system has proved effective, in terms of achievable radiometric accuracy, despite the drawbacks due to the significant reflectivity of the sources. The proposed procedure is a standard "two-source" approach in which both cold and hot sources are thermally controlled surfaces, similar to an optical solar reflector, associated to a filament lamp. Such a system allows the required signal to be achieved in the 2-25 l m instrument wavelength range. Source optimization was performed using, as a cost function, the computed radiometric uncertainty, while the required absolute accuracy of the instrument was imposed as the optimization constraint.