Abstract
ABSTRACT An investigation of the nature of the thermal diode background in integrating photodiode detectors is presented. The Weckler's (1967) nonlinear model was extended to the general situation of comparable dark and photocurrents, and the model with a self-scanned diode array detector was verified. It was found that a naive linear subtraction of a scan of background from a scan of signal plus background introduces a small multiplicative error in the apparent gain of the detector; the fractional gain error is approximately equal to the fraction of diode saturation due to integrated dark current and does not depend on the amount of illumination. A simple linear correction algorithm is described which allows the use of integration times for which diode background becomes a large fraction of diode saturation allowing detection of lower light levels. A sample application of the correction formula allows operation at a convenient dry-ice pumped-alcohol temperature for exposure times of up to 200 s.
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