Validation of the dissemination of spectral irradiance values using FEL lamps

Abstract

Scales of spectral irradiance are disseminated by NIST using assignment of values to FEL lamp standards for defined conditions. These lamp standards can be used for absolute calibrations of irradiance radiometers, or more typically, be used in conjunction with a diffuse reflectance standard to establish a scale of spectral radiance and for subsequent absolute calibrations of radiance radiometers. The NIST FEL standards are valuable artifacts requiring special care. Many users optimize resources by in-house transfer of their primary standard to working standards. There are a number of sources of uncertainty in utilizing FEL lamps, e.g., lamp current, alignment, distance setting, instrument aperture size, drift, scattered light, and interpolation in the wavelength grid for the specified irradiance values. In this work, we validated the transfer activity by ITT of their primary, NIST-traceable FEL lamp standards. A portable irradiance bench that had kinematic mounts for an FEL lamp, on-axis baffle, and three different irradiance radiometers was built, tested, and deployed to ITT in Rochester, NY. We report the results of this comparison activity. An uncertainty budget was developed and it was found that the results agreed well within the combined uncertainties of 1.5% to 1.6% (k = 2).