Broaband THz aqueous blackbody calibration source

Published

April 9, 2007

Author(s)

Charles Dietlein, Zoya Popovic, Erich N. Grossman

Abstract

We describe a broadband calibration source for the millimeter-wave to terahertz (THz) frequency range, the Aqueous Blackbody Calibration (ABC) source. The blackbody in this design is a body of water, which is extremely absorptive at these frequencies, held by an expanded polystyrene (EPS) holder in a very specific shape, and kept at a uniform known temperature. The undesirable reflectance at the interfaces between the water and the walls of the EPS container is significantly reduced by the use of an "optical trap" geometry. The shape of the custom-molded container is designed so that all radiation incident within the entrance aperture and solid angle of the source undergoes two TE and two TM 45 degree reflections off the water-EPS interface. This ensures an effective emissivity >98.5 % over the operating band, and has been verified by measurements of EPS transmittance and geometric optics simulation over the entire band. In addition, the effective reflectance of the source is characterized at selected frequencies within the 0.1-2.0THz range.

Proceedings Title

Proc., SPIE

Volume

6548

Conference Dates

April 9-13, 2007

Conference Location

Orlando, FL, USA

Conference Title

SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, Defense & Security Symposium

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

bolometer, millimeter-wave, terahertz

Citation

Dietlein, C. , Popovic, Z. and Grossman, E. (2007), Broaband THz aqueous blackbody calibration source, Proc., SPIE, Orlando, FL, USA, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=32674 (Accessed May 4, 2026)

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