The SPRITE infrared detector is named after the process of signal integration carried out by "Signal Processing In The Element". The technique was invented at the
Royal Signals and Radar Establishment
The Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) was a scientific research establishment within the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of the United Kingdom. It was located primarily at Malvern in Worcestershire, England. The RSRE motto was ''Ubique ...
at
Malvern
Malvern or Malverne may refer to:
Places Australia
* Malvern, South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide
* Malvern, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne
* City of Malvern, a former local government area near Melbourne
* Electoral district of Malvern, an el ...
by a team of scientists including
Tom Elliott Thomas or Tom Elliott may refer to:
* Thomas Elliott (footballer) (1890–?), English footballer
* Thomas Elliott (Australian cricketer) (1879–1939), Australian cricketer
* Thomas Elliott (New Zealand cricketer) (1867–?), New Zealand cricketer
...
.
[Editor worked with Tom Elliot at RRE Malvern]
The detector allows the build up of detected
infrared
Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from aroun ...
signal in a
mercury cadmium telluride Hg1−xCdxTe or mercury cadmium telluride (also cadmium mercury telluride, MCT, MerCad Telluride, MerCadTel, MerCaT or CMT) is a chemical compound of cadmium telluride (CdTe) and mercury telluride (HgTe) with a tunable bandgap spanning the shortwa ...
(MCT)
photoconductor
Photoconductivity is an optical and electrical phenomenon in which a material becomes more electrically conductive due to the absorption of electromagnetic radiation such as visible light, ultraviolet light, infrared light, or gamma radiation.
Wh ...
strip, on a sapphire substrate, by applying a bias current through the strip. The detector is used in a scanned
thermal imager
A thermal column (or thermal) is a rising mass of buoyant air, a convective current in the atmosphere, that transfers heat energy vertically. Thermals are created by the uneven heating of Earth's surface from solar radiation, and are an example ...
and the bias voltage is adjusted to force
electron
The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family,
and are generally thought to be elementary partic ...
s produced by the detected energy at one end of the strip to drift to the far end of the strip in time with the rate of the scanning such that energy from the same response is built up along the full length of the strip. This allows a much simpler way of integrating responses than linking separate detector cells.
This type of detector was used in a series of
thermal imagers known as TICM (
thermal imaging common modules
Forward-looking infrared (FLIR) cameras, typically used on military and civilian aircraft, use a thermographic camera that senses infrared radiation.
The sensors installed in forward-looking infrared cameras, as well as those of other thermal ...
). These modules were the mainstay of UK forces thermal imagers from the 1980s until their replacement by fully staring, two-dimensional-arrays detectors.
See also
*
Yellow Duckling Yellow Duckling was an early development of an infrared linescan camera, developed for the detection of submarines during the Cold War. The name is one of the series of British Rainbow Codes.
Origins
Infrared detection systems had been considere ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sprite Infrared Detector
Infrared imaging
Malvern, Worcestershire
Military electronics of the United Kingdom
Military sensor technology
Science and technology in Worcestershire