Invited Article: Advance in tunable laser-based radiometric calibration applications at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA

Recent developments at the National Institute of Standards and Technology's facility for Spectral Irradiance and Radiance responsivity Calibrations using Uniform Sources (SIRCUS) are presented. The facility is predicated on the use of broadly tunable narrow-band lasers as light sources in two key radiometric calibration applications. In the first application, the tunable lasers are used to calibrate the spectral power responsivities of primary standard detectors against an absolute cryogenic radiometer (ACR). The second function is to calibrate the absolute radiance and irradiance responsivities of detectors with uniform light sources, typically generated by coupling the laser light into integrating spheres. The radiant flux from the uniform sources is determined by the ACR-calibrated primary standard detectors. Together these sources and detectors are used to transfer radiometric scales to a variety of optical instruments with low uncertainties. We describe methods for obtaining the stable, uniform light sources required for low uncertainty measurements along with advances in laser sources that facilitate tuning over broader wavelength ranges. Example applications include the development of a detector-based thermodynamic temperature scale, the calibration and characterization of spectro-graphs, and the use of a traveling version of SIRCUS (T-SIRCUS) to calibrate large aperture Earth observing instruments and astronomical telescopes.