Conclusion

The last 15 years of the 20th century saw major advances in radiometric reference detectors, reducing uncertainties by a factor of 10. This development has led to less spectacular but significant progress in all detectors of radiometric quantities, particularly those concerning sources, with applications in pyrometry.

Detectors such as PQEDs are still in their infancy, but we can expect their uncertainty to improve and the use of primary references to be simplified.

The many applications of radiation measurement will benefit from these developments. More precise measurements of the quantities used in lighting will help reduce energy consumption. Precise, long-term data on essential climate variables dependent on radiation are expected by climatologists to increase the accuracy of their forecasting models.

These new...