2. Characterization

2.1 Materials required

This section is devoted to presenting the key elements required to implement and characterize an infrared detector array. First, the direct environment of the array is described, comprising the cryostat (in the case of cooled detectors), the proximity electronics and the acquisition system. This is followed by the instrumentation used for radiometric calibration of the detector, built around reference sources of infrared radiation. The other elements of a test bench, described in the remainder of this paragraph, then depend on the type of characterization, the specificities of the application (e.g. active imaging or very low flux radiometry) and the particularities of the component (conditioning in an operational or laboratory cryostat, operating temperature,...