S/N ENHANCEMENT OF AN FTS SYSTEM BY DYNAMIC FILTER COMPENSATION FOR SAMPLING ERRORS

Abstract

The S/N capability of an Idealab Fourier Transform Spectrometer using a HgCdTe detector was Improved by a factor of 30 to a level where system performance with a Nernst glower source was limited only by the extrinsic detector noise. The results reported here constitute a hardware demonstration of an analysis recently published by Zachor and Aaronson. Our analysis and hardware demonstration are in substantial agreement with the work of Zachor and Aaronson which was carried out independently. Diagnostic data will be presented which illustrate the distortion to the spectrum caused by errors in sampling. The characteristics/specifications for signal and sampling control electronics which provide dynamic compensation for sampling errors will be discussed, and test data showing the 30 fold improvement in S/N will be presented.