Compact Focal Plane Assembly for FIR Planetary Science

Building upon an FY11 IRAD in which we fabricated and characterized novel far-IR bandpass filters. With this IRAD we aim to integrate and test these filters with compact thermopile arrays, so as to build a low cost and low mass prototype thermal instrument for outer planet spectroscopy and/or radiometry.This task addresses a need for low mass and cost instruments on planetary science missions.

We will use a three-pronged approach: (1) Design and fabricate filter stacks; (2) integrate thermopiles with analog readout board into a cryogenic dewar; (3) characterize thermopiles with and without filter stacks using a far-infrared source.