This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 9973 including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, Introduction, and Conference Committee listing.

The low-frequency noise is a ubiquitous phenomenon and the spectral power density of this fluctuation process is inversely proportional to the frequency of the signal. We have measured the 1/f noise of a 640x512 pixel quantum well infrared photodetector (QWIP) focal plane array (FPA) with 6.2 μm peak wavelength. Our experimental observations show that this QWIP FPA’s 1/f noise corner frequency is about 0.1 mHz. With this kind of low frequency stability, QWIPs could unveil a new class of infrared applications that have never been imagined before. Furthermore, we present the results from a similar 1/f noise measurement of bulk InAsSb absorber (lattice matched to GaSb substrate) nBn detector array with 4.0 μm cutoff wavelength.

The nBn photodetector architecture proposed and demonstrated by Maimon and Wicks provides an effective means for lowering generation-recombination dark current by suppressing Shockley-Read-Hall processes, and for reducing surface leakage dark current. This has been especially beneficial for III-V semiconductor based infrared photodiodes, which traditionally tend to suffer from excess depletion dark current and lack of good surface passivation. We examine how contact (n), barrier (B), and absorber (n) properties can affect carrier transport in nBn infrared detector. In an nBn detector the unipolar electron barrier should block only the electrons while allowing the un-impeded flow of holes, but improper barrier doping or barrier-absorber band offset could also block hole transport and result in higher turn-on bias. Contact doping has also been observed to result in higher turn-on bias at higher temperatures. In the case when the absorber is made from n-doped type-II superlattice (T2SL), although it is often assumed that the exceedingly large growth-direction band-edge curvature hole effective mass in n-type long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) T2SL would lead to low hole mobility and therefore low detector collection quantum efficiency, in practice mid-wavelength infrared (MWIR) and LWIR nBn infrared detectors have demonstrated good optical response. We explore how hole mobility can be affected by band structure effects such as band mixing and subband splitting to gain better understanding of hole transport in T2SL.

Cytochrome c protein thin film possesses a high temperature coefficient of resistance. In this paper, we systematically investigated the characteristics of cytochrome c, whose absorption coefficient is 65% at wavelengths of 8~12 μm. We found that the changes in resistance resulted from surface roughness. We also discovered that, while cytochrome c improves the temperature coefficient of resistance, a pure protein solution does not conduct well. It needs a buffer solution, acting as an electrolyte, to increase electrical conductance. However, the buffer solution decreases the temperature coefficient. Therefore, optimization of the ratio of cytochrome c protein to buffer solution is required. We determined the best mixing ratio of the protein solution for a sensing material. We then designed a chip for an infrared microbolometer with a MEMS structure of suspended aluminum electrodes. The protein solution was deposited on the sensing pixel using an inkjet printer. The temperature coefficient of resistance, thermal conductance, time constant and responsivity were 25.98%/K, 7.96 × 10-5 W/K, 1.094 ms and 2.57 × 105 V/W at 2 μA bias current, respectively. We experimentally demonstrated integrating cytochrome c protein with a CMOS circuit as a sensing pixel for a longwavelength infrared microbolometer. Based on our experimental results, such a microbolometer array holds promise for the future.

Gas sensing is a key technology with applications in various industrial, medical and environmental areas. Optical detection mechanisms allow for a highly selective, contactless and fast detection. For this purpose, rotational-vibrational absorption bands within the mid infrared (MIR) spectral region are exploited and probed with appropriate light sources. During the past years, the development of novel laser concepts such as interband cascade lasers (ICLs) and quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) has driven a continuous optimization of MIR laser sources. On the other hand side, there has been relatively little progress on detectors in this wavelength range. Here, we study two novel and promising GaSb-based detector concepts: Interband cascade detectors (ICD) and resonant tunneling diode (RTD) photodetectors. ICDs are a promising approach towards highly sensitive room temperature detection of MIR radiation. They make use of the cascading scheme that is enabled by the broken gap alignment of the two binaries GaSb and InAs. The interband transition in GaSb/InAs-superlattices (SL) allows for normal incidence detection. The cut-off wavelength, which determines the low energy detection limit, can be engineered via the SL period. RTD photodetectors act as low noise and high speed amplifiers of small optically generated electrical signals. In contrast to avalanche photodiodes, where the gain originates from multiplication due to impact ionization, in RTD photodetectors a large tunneling current is modulated via Coulomb interaction by the presence of photogenerated minority charge carriers. For both detector concepts, first devices operational at room temperature have been realized.

We have studied the photocurrent-voltage relation of resonant tunneling diode (RTD) photodetectors by means of electrooptical transport measurements. The investigated RTDs are based on an Al0.6Ga0.4As/GaAs double barrier resonant tunneling structure (RTS) with an integrated GaInNAs absorption layer for light sensing at the telecommunication wavelength of λ= 1.3 μm. Under illumination, photogenerated holes can be captured for accumulation in vicinity to the RTS and modulate the resonant tunneling current that is highly sensitive to changes in the local electrostatic potential. The resulting photocurrent-voltage relation is found to be a nonlinear function of the applied bias voltage, and governed by the interplay of the electronic transport properties of the RTS and the dynamics of photogenerated holes. Time-resolved photocurrent measurements were employed to analyze the dynamics of photogenerated holes. From the photocurrent-time traces the quantum-efficiency and mean lifetime of photogenerated holes can be separately determined. We found that the photoresponse is suppressed by a low quantum efficiency for bias voltages below V ≤ 1 V. In this regime, the built-in electric field prevents photogenerated holes from accumulation at the RTS. For voltages above V >1 V, the built-in field is compensated by the external bias, and η(V) takes on a constant value. In this regime, the RTD photoresponse is mainly determined by the lifetime of holes accumulated at the RTS. The lifetime is limited by thermionic carrier escape and was found to decrease exponentially with the applied bias voltage.

Radiative cooling has recently garnered a great deal of attention for its potential as an alternative method for photovoltaic thermal management. Here, we will consider the limits of radiative cooling for thermal management of electronics broadly, as well as a specific application to thermal power generation. We show that radiative cooling power can increase rapidly with temperature, and is particularly beneficial in systems lacking standard convective cooling. This finding indicates that systems previously operating at elevated temperatures (e.g., 80°C) can be passively cooled close to ambient under appropriate conditions with a reasonable cooling area. To examine these general principles for a previously unexplored application, we consider the problem of thermophotovoltaic (TPV) conversion of heat to electricity via thermal radiation illuminating a photovoltaic diode. Since TPV systems generally operate in vacuum, convective cooling is sharply limited, but radiative cooling can be implemented with proper choice of materials and structures. In this work, realistic simulations of system performance are performed using the rigorous coupled wave analysis (RCWA) techniques to capture thermal emitter radiation, PV diode absorption, and radiative cooling. We subsequently optimize the structural geometry within realistic design constraints to find the best configurations to minimize operating temperature. It is found that low-iron soda-lime glass can potentially cool the PV diode by a substantial amount, even to below ambient temperatures. The cooling effect can be further improved by adding 2D-periodic photonic crystal structures. We find that the improvement of efficiency can be as much as an 18% relative increase, relative to the non-radiatively cooled baseline, as well as a potentially significant improvement in PV diode lifetime.

ScaRaB (SCAnner for RAdiation Budget) is an Indo-French satellite onboard MEGHA-TROPIQUES launched on October 12th 2011. This radiometer has been designed to fill the gap between the ERBS and CERES missions to study the water cycle and energy exchanges in the tropics. ScaRaB is fit with four parallel and independent channels: channel- 2 and channel-3 being considered as the main ones, channel-1 is dedicated to measure solar radiance while channel-4 is an infrared window. The absolute calibration of ScaRaB is achieved by internal calibration sources (black bodies and a lamp for channel-1). The radiometric properties of deserts sites and more especially their stable spectral response over time made them very good candidates to perform temporal monitoring of ScaRaB channel-1. This paper deals with the corresponding results. High altitude clouds are observed by ScaRaB to survey the balance between channel 2 and channel 3: the earth longwave radiance is isolated by subtracting the short-wave channel to the total channel. Radiometric cross calibration of Earth observation sensors is a crucial need to guarantee or quantify the consistency of measurements from different sensors. CERES and ScaRaB Earth Radiation Budget missions have the same specification: to provide an accuracy of ~1% in the measurement of short-wave and long-wave radiances and an estimation of the short-wave and long-wave fluxes less than 10 W/m². Taking advantage of the “equatorial” orbit of Megha-Tropiques, NASA proceeded to manoeuvers on CERES-Terra in order to ease an inter-comparison between both instruments over common targets. Actually, The CERES PAPS mode was used to align its swath scan in order to increase the collocated pixels between the two instruments. The experience lasted 3 months from March 22th and May 31st 2015. A previous similar campaign has already been led in 2012. This article presents the results of these inter-comparisons, providing an indication on the temporal stability of the calibration between 2012 and 2015.

To observe the global column concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) from space, the Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) was launched on January 23, 2009, and has started the operational observation. Thermal and Near Infrared Sensor for Carbon Observation – Fourier Transform Spectrometer (TANSO-FTS) has been continuously measuring CO2 and CH4 distributions globally, and supporting the global carbon cycle elucidation. It is important to monitor the greenhouse gases in long-term period with same data quality. During 7.5 years operational periods, GOSAT passed the designed lifetime, which is 5 years, and some components report the change of characteristic in-orbit. The pointing mechanism, which has a capability of change a line of scene both of along track and cross track, is equipped on GOSAT. To keep the quality of spectra from TANSO-FTS and try to ambitious observation plan, the pointing mechanism is switched to the backup one in January 2015. In addition, the spectral resolution is degraded due to the bias of ZPD position science 2014. The compensation algorithm is developed and implemented on the operational system and completed the reprocessing for all passed observation data. The pointing mechanism, observation pattern, and processing algorithm were renovated, and GOSAT can provide the long-term and consistent quality spectra.

We demonstrate an echelle diffraction grating (EDG) of 17 input waveguides and 33 output waveguides. For each input waveguide, only 17 of 33 output waveguides are used, receiving light ranging from 1520 nm to 1600 nm wavelength. The channel spacing of the EDG is 5 nm, with loss of -6dB and crosstalk of -17dB for center input waveguide and -15dB for edge input waveguides. Based on the 3 μm SOI platform the device is polarization insensitive. As a simple version of EDG spectrometer it is designed to be a part of the on-chip spectroscopic system of the push-broom scanning imaging spectrometer. The whole on-chip spectrometer consists of an optical on-off switch array, a multi-input EDG and detector array. With the help of on-off switch array the multiple input waveguides of the EDG spectrometer could work in a time division multiplexed fashion. Since the switch can scan very fast (less than 10 microseconds), the imaging spectrometer can be operated in push-broom mode. Due to the CMOS compatibility, the 17_channel EDG scales 2.5×3 mm². The full version of EDG spectrometer is designed to have 129 input waveguides and 257 output waveguides (129 output channel for each input waveguide), working in wavelength ranging from 1250 nm to 1750 nm, and had similar blazed facet size with the 17_channel one, which means similar fabrication tolerance in grating facets. The waveguide EDG based imaging spectrometer can provide a low-cost solution for remote sensing on unmanned aerial vehicles, with advantages of small size, light weight, vibration-proof, and high scalability.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Observatory is the follow-on mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). JWST will be the biggest space telescope ever built and it will lead to astounding scientific breakthroughs. The mission will be launched in October 2018 from Kourou, French Guyana by an ESA provided Ariane 5 rocket. NIRSpec, one of the four instruments on board of the mission, recently underwent a major upgrade. New infrared detectors were installed and the Micro Shutter Assembly (MSA) was replaced as well. The rework was necessary because both systems were found to be degrading beyond a level that could be accepted. Now in its final flight configuration, NIRSpec underwent a final cryogenic performance test at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) as part of the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM). This paper will present a status overview and results of the recent test campaigns.

We report on the design and instrumentation of an aircraft-certified far infrared radiometer (FIRR) and the resulting instrument characteristics. FIRR was designed to perform unattended airborne measurements of ice clouds in the arctic in support of a microsatellite payload study. It provides radiometrically calibrated data in nine spectral channels in the range of 8-50 μm with the use of a rotating wheel of bandpass filters and reference blackbodies. Measurements in this spectral range are enabled with the use of a far infrared detector based on microbolometers of 104-μm pitch. The microbolometers have a new design because of the large structure and are coated with gold black to maintain uniform responsivity over the working spectral range. The vacuum sealed detector package is placed at the focal plane of a reflective telescope based on a Schwarschild configuration with two on-axis spherical mirrors. The telescope field-of-view is of ~6° and illuminates an area of ~2.1-mm diameter at the focal plane. In operation, FIRR was used as a nonimaging radiometer and exhibited a noise equivalent radiance in the range of 10-20 mW/m²-sr. The dynamic range and the detector vacuum integrity of FIRR were found to be suited for the conditions of the airborne experiments.

In this paper, we present an ultra-wideband microwave-modulated laser radar which is designed and fabricated for improvement of the spatial resolution both in the range direction and the azimuth direction. The amplitude modulation in a range of 0.01-18 GHz is applied to an infrared laser source of 1550 nm wavelength. The frequency and the bandwidth are assigned by the Administration of Radio under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in Japan. However, there is no bandwidth limitation in the infrared region. Considering the influence of radiation pattern for microwave antennas case, there is no side lobe in laser beam transmission. Ambiguous signal and interferences which are returned from the ground can be suppressed. A prototype of laser-radar system with a fiber collimator for both transmitting and receiving optics has been fabricated. A vector network analyzer is used to obtain S₂₁ signal between the microwave modulation input and that of received signal. The system is, at first, applied to the measurement of the distance (position) of an object. It is proved that the spatial resolution is less than 1 cm during 5-10 m. As an initial experiment, we have succeeded to obtain 3D image of object by scanning a laser beam in two dimensions.

The joint U.S. and German Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), project has been operating airborne astronomy flights from Palmdale, California since 2011. The observatory consists of a modified 747-SP aircraft with a 2.5-meter telescope in its aft section. SOFIA has a suite of eight science instruments spanning visible to far-infrared wavelengths. For the majority of the year SOFIA operates out of the Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California, giving access to Northern Hemisphere targets. SOFIA’s mobility also allows observations in the Southern Hemisphere (Christchurch, New Zealand), of objects such as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the Galactic Center, and Eta Carinae In 2016, SOFIA added polarimetry capability on SOFIA, with HAWC+ commissioning flights. Selected science results, current instrument suite status, new capabilities, and some expectations of future instrument developments over the lifetime of the observatory will be discussed.

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a 2.5-meter infrared telescope built into a Boeing 747SP. In 2014 SOFIA reached its “Full Operational Capability” milestone and nowadays takes off about three times a week to observe the infrared sky from altitudes above most of the atmosphere's water vapor content. Despite reaching this major milestone, efforts to improve the observatory's performance are continuing in many areas. The team of the Deutsches SOFIA Institut, DSI (German SOFIA Institute) at the SOFIA Science Center in Moffett Field, CA works in several engineering areas to improve the observatory's performance and its efficiency. DSI supports the allocation process of SOFIA's observation time for guest observers, provides and supports two facility science instruments and conducts an observing program of stellar occultations by small objects of the solar system. This paper summarizes results and ongoing work on a spare secondary mirror made of aluminum, the new and improved Focal Plane Imager (FPI+) that has become a facility science instrument, the Field-Imaging Far-Infrared Line Spectrometer (FIFI-LS), new cameras and optics for the Fine Field and Wide Field Imagers (FFI+ and WFI+), real-time astrometric solution of star field images, ground support equipment and astronomical observations.

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) tracking camera simulator is a component of the Telescope Assembly Simulator (TASim). TASim is a software simulation of the telescope optics, mounting, and control software. Currently in its fifth major version, TASim is relied upon for telescope operator training, mission planning and rehearsal, and mission control and science instrument software development and testing. TASim has recently been extended for hardware-in-the-loop operation in support of telescope and camera hardware development and control and tracking software improvements. All three SOFIA optical tracking cameras are simulated, including the Focal Plane Imager (FPI), which has recently been upgraded to the status of a science instrument that can be used on its own or in parallel with one of the seven infrared science instruments. The simulation includes tracking camera image simulation of starfields based on the UCAC4 catalog at real-time rates of 4-20 frames per second. For its role in training and planning, it is important for the tracker image simulation to provide images with a realistic appearance and response to changes in operating parameters. For its role in tracker software improvements, it is vital to have realistic signal and noise levels and precise star positions. The design of the software simulation for precise subpixel starfield rendering (including radial distortion), realistic point-spread function as a function of focus, tilt, and collimation, and streaking due to telescope motion will be described. The calibration of the simulation for light sensitivity, dark and bias signal, and noise will also be presented

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a 2.5m infrared telescope built into a Boeing 747 SP. In 2014 SOFIA reached its Full Operational Capability milestone and nowadays takes off about three times a week to observe the infrared sky from altitudes above most of the atmosphere’s water vapor content. Despite reaching this major milestone the work to improve the observatory’s performance is continuing in many areas. This paper focuses on the telescope’s current pointing and chopping performance and gives an overview over the ongoing and foreseen work to further improve in those two areas. Pointing performance as measured with the fast focal plane camera in flight is presented and based on that data it is elaborated how and in which frequency bands a further reduction of image jitter might be achieved. One contributor to the remaining jitter as well as the major actuator to reduce jitter with frequencies greater than 5 Hz is SOFIA’s Secondary Mirror Assembly (SMA) or Chopper. As-is SMA jitter and chopping performance data as measured in flight is presented as well as recent improvements to the position sensor cabling and calibration and their effect on the SMA’s pointing accuracy. Furthermore a brief description of a laboratory mockup of the SMA is given and the intended use of this mockup to test major hardware changes for further performance improvement is explained.

The NASA Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), is a 2.5 meter telescope in a modified Boeing 747SP aircraft that is flown at high altitude to do unique astronomy in the infrared. SOFIA is a singular integration of aircraft operations, telescope design, and science instrumentation that delivers observational opportunities outside the capability of any other facility. The science ground operations are the transition and integration point of the science, aircraft, and telescope. We present the ground operations themselves and the tools used to prepare for mission success. Specifically, we will discuss the concept of operations from science instrument delivery to aircraft operation and mission readiness. Included in that will be a description of the facilities and their development, an overview of the SOFIA telescope assembly simulator, as well as an outlook to the future of novel science instrument support for SOFIA

The Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a 2.5-m telescope mounted inside of a Boeing 747SP. Planning and executing astronomical observations from an aircraft moving at 500 miles per hour has its own unique challenges and advantages. Scheduling and optimizing an entire year of science observations is a balancing act with target availability, instrument availability, and operational constraints. A SOFIA flight is well choreographed, and successfully executing observations on SOFIA requires many systems and people to work together- from the telescope assembly compensating for the continual vibration and movement of the plane in order to accurately point the telescope, the expertise of the telescope operators to prepare the telescope for use by the instrument operators, aircraft operations ensuring that the aircraft is ready for flight, and the mission systems control computers keeping track of all the data. In this paper we will discuss what it takes to plan a SOFIA flight, and what we do once we’re in the air. We will share a typical science flight, as well as more challenging and unique observations that require SOFIA being in the right place at the right time.

Effective stray light control is a key requirement for wide dynamic range performance of scientific optical and infrared systems. SOFIA now has over 325 mission flights including extended southern hemisphere deployments; science campaigns using 7 different instrument configurations have been completed. The research observations accomplished on these missions indicate that the telescope and cavity designs are effective at suppressing stray light. Stray light performance impacts, such as optical surface contamination, from cavity environment conditions during mission flight cycles and while on-ground, have proved to be particularly benign. When compared with earlier estimates, far fewer large optics re-coatings are now anticipated, providing greater facility efficiency.

More than fourteen years ago, the Rosetta space probe along with its lander module was launched to encounter comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August 2014. On 12 November 2014, the lander Philae performed the first successful landing on a comet recording numerous unique in situ data. Over the last two years Rosetta’s orbiter was escorting the comet during its journey through the Solar system. With its ten main scientific instruments it acquired an enormous amount of data enabling us a deeper insight into crucial cometary processes, a better understanding of the Solar system’s pristine matter, and thus studies of its early state. The end of the mission in September 2016 is going to be its last highlight when the Rosetta orbiter will land on the cometary surface. This paper gives an overview about key achievements of the mission. It introduces the scientific payload, summarizes outstanding results, and discusses prospects for cometary science.

Based on experience gained from using the VIRTIS instrument on Venus Express to observe the surface of Venus and the new high temperature laboratory experiments, we have developed the multispectral Venus Emissivity Mapper (VEM) to study the surface of Venus. VEM imposes minimal requirements on the spacecraft and mission design and can therefore be added to any future Venus mission. Ideally, the VEM instrument will be combined with a high-resolution radar mapper to provide accurate topographic information, as it will be the case for the NASA Discovery VERITAS mission or the ESA EnVision M5 proposal.

Infrared sensor system is a major concern for inter-planetary missions that investigate the nature and the formation processes of planets and asteroids. The infrared sensor system requires signal preprocessing functions that compensate for the intensity of infrared image sensors to get high quality data and high compression ratio through the limited capacity of transmission channels towards ground stations. For those implementations, combinations of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and microprocessors are employed by AKATSUKI, the Venus Climate Orbiter, and HAYABUSA2, the asteroid probe. On the other hand, much smaller size and lower power consumption are demanded for future missions to accommodate more sensors. To fulfill this future demand, we developed a novel processor architecture which consists of reconfigurable cluster cores and programmable-logic cells with complementary atom switches. The complementary atom switches enable hardware programming without configuration memories, and thus soft-error on logic circuit connection is completely eliminated. This is a noteworthy advantage for space applications which cannot be found in conventional re-writable FPGAs. Almost one-tenth of lower power consumption is expected compared to conventional re-writable FPGAs because of the elimination of configuration memories. The proposed processor architecture can be reconfigured by behavioral synthesis with higher level language specification. Consequently, compensation functions are implemented in a single chip without accommodating program memories, which is accompanied with conventional microprocessors, while maintaining the comparable performance. This enables us to embed a processor element on each infrared signal detector output channel.

Many processes on planetary bodies are driven by their respective surface energy balance, and while planetary climate is influenced by the dynamics of the atmospheric boundary layer, surface radiation drives the Yarkovksy and YORB effects on small airless bodies. In addition, insolation governs cometary activity and drives the dust cycle on Mars. The radiative flux received and emitted at the surface of solar system bodies is thus a fundamental quantity, which is driven by the reception of solar radiation in the visible wavelength band, while re-radiation primarily occurs in the thermal infrared. Knowledge of the relevant radiative fluxes enables studies of thermo-physical surface properties, and radiometers to measure surface brightness temperatures have been payloads on many missions. The HP3-RAD is part of the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) on the InSight mission to Mars. It is a light-weight thermal infrared radiometer with compact design. HP3-RAD measures radiative flux in 3 spectral bands using thermopile detectors. The 120 g device includes integrated front-end electronics as well as a deployable cover that protects the sensors from dust contamination during landing. In addition, the cover is simultaneously used as a calibration target. The instrument concept as well as its implementation will be described, and special emphasis will be put on technological challenges encountered during instrument development. Potential future improvements of the design will be discussed.

This work deals with the design and development of an SMF28-based vibration detector including the fiber segment, the data acquisition via an NI-USB-6212 card, the data processing code in Visual Basic and the signal spectrum obtained via Fourier analysis. The set-up consists of a regulated voltage source at 2.6V, 300mA, which serves as the power source for a 980nm semiconductor laser operating at 150mW which is fiber coupled into a 20m-piece of SMF-28 fiber. Perpendicular to such fiber the perturbations ranged from 1 to 100 kHz, coming from a DC motor at 12 Volts. At the detection stage, a simple analog filter and a commercial photo diode were employed for data acquisition, before a transimpedance amplification stage reconstructed the signal into the National Instruments data acquisition card. At the output, the signals Fourier transformation allows the signal to be displayed in a personal computer. The presentation will include a full electrical and optical characterization of the device and preliminary sensing results, which could be suitable for structural health monitoring applications.

The direct detection of exoplanets is obstructed by bright of a nearby star. Rotational shearing interferometer may cancels the light from the star in the infrared region when its OPD is λ2, however, this ideal condition are almost impossible to achieve. We propose a technique that incorporates a wedge prisms system to control the interferometer OPD, the interferometer is based in the Mach-Zhender configuration and incorporates two dove prisms as rotational shearing system. Simulated interference patterns are presented to evaluate the system feasibility.

Strengthening techniques allows enhance metal physical properties. Laser shock peening (LSP) technique consist in a surface treatment which a high power laser pulse induces a compressive residual stress field through mechanical shock waves, increasing hardness, corrosion resistance, fatigue resistance. In comparison with the shot peening technique, LSP is a method that allows precision controlling the laser incidence on the surface under treatment increasing the surface quality in the surface under treatment. In this work, mechanical shock waves are induced in aluminum and measure using two different experimental approaches. First, using a PVDZ sensors and secondly, strain gauges are used. Experimental results are presented.

In the last decade, Adaptive Optics has been used to compensate the aberrations of the eye in order to acquire high resolution retinal images. The use of high speed deformable mirrors (DMs) to accomplish this compensation in real time is of great importance. But, sometimes DMs are overused, compensating the aberrations inherent in the optical systems. In this work the evaluation of the performance of an adaptive optics system together with the imaging system will be evaluated in order to know in advance the aberrations inherent in them in order to compensate them prior the use of a DM.

Phase-shifting is an important technique for phase retrieval in interferometry and three dimensional profiling by fringe projection, which requires a series of intensity measurement with known phase-steps. Usual algorithms are based on the assumption that the phase-steps are evenly spaced. In practice, the phase steps are not evenly spaced or exactly determined or measurement, which leads to errors in the recovered phase. Based in this fact, some iterative algorithms have been proposed, e.g. Advanced Iterative Algorithm, which is a self-calibration algorithm for phase retrieval, however, it converges slowly. In this work, we propose an efficient-computational strategy for implementation of the AIA algorithm. The proposal consists of two steps: a method to reduce the number of iterations, and the use of high performance computing techniques to reduce the computation time at each iteration. The strategy is validated using synthetic and real data. Results show a drastic reduction in the number of iterations and increased performance.

We review theoretical considerations that give rise to the blackbody radiation inside a cavity with completely absorbing walls at a specific temperature. We examine the applicability of this model to the experimentally observed properties of radiation sources. We assess relevance of emissivity and its far-reaching implications. We examine its changing nature and measurement challenges

The current philosophy of designing intelligent buildings emphasizes the use of materials whose performance is compatible with thermal environment that changes daily and seasonally. Ideally, engineering designs should incorporate features to reflect as much energy as feasible and store excess thermal energy. This may be for usage during periods when thermal energy is needed for heating. We show that current construction design methods may be improved for energy efficiency, by incorporating an attic as an transitional space for energy storage during summer, and by employing roof materials with high reflectivity in the visible and in the near IR (up to about 1.9 μm). Thus, traditional red or pink brick roofs, potentially glazed or covered with low reflectivity coating, would likely remain (become again) the preferred construction material.