Characterization of H2RG IR detectors for the Euclid NISP instrument

Euclid, a major ESA mission for the study of dark energy, will offer a large survey of tens of millions of galaxies thanks to its Near-Infrared Spectro-Photometer. For it to be successful, the 16 Teledyne's 2.3 mu m cutoff 2048x2048 pixels IR HgCdTe detectors of the focal plane must show very high performances over more than 95% of pixels, in terms of median dark current, total noise, budget error on non-linearity after correction, residual dark due to latency effects and quantum efficiency. This will be verified through a thorough characterization of their performances, leading to the production of the pixel map calibration database for the Euclid mission. Characterization is challenging in many ways: each detector will have to be fully and accurately characterized in less than three weeks, with rather tight requirements: dark current at the 10(-3) e-/s level with 10% accuracy, relative Pixel Response map better than 1%, obtained with an illumination flatness better than 1%, measurements alternating dark and high level illumination taking care of latency impacts. Due to statistics needs, very long runs (24h without interrupts) of scripted measurements would be executed. Systematics of the test bench should be at the end the limiting factor of the parameter measurement accuracy. Test plan, facilities with functionalities developed for those specific purposes and associated performances will be described.