Abstract
The temperature distribution and temperature noise in a pyroelectric infrared detector is calculated. The situation studied corresponds to that which applies in some current detectors in which the pyroelectric element is very thin (∼10 μm) and the tube is filled with gas which provides the dominant heat loss mechanism. The exact steady-state solution to the heat conduction equation is obtained and, on the basis of the results from this, simpler solutions corresponding to two limiting cases are given. Expressions are obtained for the effective thermal conductance of the system, and hence an estimate is made of the noise equivalent power of the detector due to temperature fluctuations.
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