Characterisation of pulsed Carbon fiber illuminators for FIR instrument calibration

TL;DR

This paper develops and validates a model for pulsed carbon fiber illuminators emitting in the far infrared, demonstrating their effectiveness for calibrating FIR instruments like the Planck-HFI bolometer.

Contribution

It presents a detailed model of the thermal properties of carbon fiber illuminators and confirms their suitability for FIR calibration through experimental validation.

Findings

Model accurately predicts fiber thermal behavior

Illuminators exhibit stable emission in submm range

Effective for calibrating FIR instruments

Abstract

We manufactured pulsed illuminators emitting in the far infrared for the Planck-HFI bolometric instrument ground calibrations. Specific measurements have been conducted on these light sources, based on Carbon fibers, to understand and predict their properties. We present a modelisation of the temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity and the calorific capacitance of the fibers. A comparison between simulations and bolometer data is given, that shows the coherence of our model. Their small time constants, their stability and their emission spectrum pointing in the submm range make these illuminators a very usefull tool for calibrating FIR instruments.