Radiometric Calibrations of Portable Sources in the Vacuum Ultraviolet
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Volume 93, Number 1, January-February 1988 Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards Radiometric Calibrationsof PortableSources in the Vacuum Ultraviolet Volume 93 Number 1 January-February 1988 Jules Z. Kiose, J. Mervin The radiometric calibration program their uncertainties. Finally, the calibra- Bridges, and William R. Ott carried out by the vacuum ultraviolet tion services are delineated in an ap- radiometry group in the Atomic and pendix. National Bureau of Standards Plasma Radiation Division of the Na- Gaithersburg, MD 20899 tional Bureau of Standards is presented in brief. Descriptions are given of the Key words: arc (argCn); arc (blackbody); primary standards, which are the hydro- arc (hydrogen); irradiance; lamp (deu- gen arc and the blackbody line arc, and terium); radiance; radiometry; Standards the secondary standards, which are the (radiometric); ultraviolet; vacuum ultra- argon mini- and maxi-arcs and the deu- violet. terium arc lamp. The calibrationmeth- ods involving both spectral radiance and irradiance are then discussed along with Accepted: October 2, 1987 1. Introduction desired wavelength. In this case the most direct procedure is to employ a standard source. The The vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) region of the source to be investigated as well as the standard spectrum has become important in several areas of source are set up in turn so that radiation from each research and development. These include space- source passes through the same monochromator based astronomy and astrophysics, thermonuclear and optical elements. The calibration is performed fusion research, ultraviolet laser development, and essentially by a direct substitution of the standard general atomic physics research. Applications of source for the one to be calibrated. VUV radiation in chemical, biophysical, and medi- The second case occurs when one wishes to cal fields are widespread. Many applications re- know the flux in a monochromatic beam of radia- quire knowledge of not only the wavelength of the tion, such as the flux emerging from the exit slit of radiation involved but also the intensity or flux of a monochromator. For this determination a stan- radiation. This implies a calibration of some type. dard detector is more appropriate; the flux is deter- The calibration may be based upon a standard mined by simply measuring the signal when the source, i.e., one whose output is known, or a stan- detector is irradiated with the beam to be cali- dard detector, i.e., one whose response to a given brated. If one were to attempt to perform the cali- radiation level is known. Two general cases can be bration in the first case above using a standard distinguished. In the first case one wishes to deter- detector or in the second case using a standard mine how much radiation a source such as the sun source, one would in both cases need to know the or a plasma device is emitting at a given wave- spectral efficiency of the monochromator used in length. Usually, the source is not monochromatic, the measurement. This would require an additional so a monochromator must be used to select the measurement using a second monochromator and 21 Volume 93, Number 1, January-February 1988 Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards would introduce additional uncertainties and com- by operating it at a given distance from the target plexities. Therefore, a need exists for both standard area. Some sources may be used as either standard sources and standard detectors. radiance or standard irradiance sources. A separate Standard sources may be divided into primary calibration must be performed, however, for each standards and secondary or transfer standards. Pri- quantity. mary standards are ones whose output is known The services performed by the Atomic and from basic principles. The primary standards of Plasma Radiation Division of the National Bureau VUV radiation include plasma sources, especially of Standards include tests and calibrations of the wall-stabilized hydrogen and blackbody line portable secondary VUV standard radiance and ir- arcs, and electron storage rings emitting synchro- radiance sources. These are usually rare-gas dimer tron radiation. lamps, which emit continuum radiation over lim- There are storage rings at several laboratories, ited wavelength ranges, and hollow cathode lamps, including NBS, which are used as primary VUV which emit spectral lines in the wavelength range radiation standard sources. They produce highly- from the VUV through the visible. All sources are polarized continuum radiation for wavelengths generally supplied by customers. The main groups 0.03 anm. Limited access to storage rings and of customers have included those in the fields of problems with the emitted polarized light, how- space-based astronomy and solar physics who have ever, make it desirable to have available other stan- used standard sources to calibrate satellite, rocket, dard VUV sources. The wall-stabilized hydrogen or balloon-borne spectrometers. Other customers and blackbody line arcs were developed to provide have needed calibrations in the 100-300 nm range alternative primary standard sources. These for plasma radiation studies. sources, however, are also not able to be easily used for calibrations. Hence, secondary or transfer standards which are relatively easy to apply have been developed. These include the deuterium lamp 2. Apparatus 2.1 Primary Standards and the argon mini-arc. These sources are more readily available and make possible relatively inex- 2.1.1 The Hydrogen Arc A high temperature wall- pensive and convenient calibrations. Also for re- stabilized steady-state hydrogen arc has been de- searchers having access to a storage ring, the veloped as our primary standard of spectral radi- secondary standards are useful in making possible ance [1]. This type of arc lends itself to such a use more frequent calibrations. Finally, the secondary because at sufficiently high temperatures it yields standards possess some useful properties not char- absolute intensities independent of other radiomet- acteristic of the available primary standards such ric standards or of the accuracy of any plasma di- as, for example, emission over a relatively large agnostics. Previous efforts at lower powers were solid angle. hindered by large uncertainties in plasma diagnos- The two principal radiometric quantities which tics, a difficulty that has been overcome in the high are measured and calibrated are radiance and irra- temperature arc. Figure I illustrates the UV spec- diance. For an object or source which emits radia- trum of several of the more common standard tion, the radiance is the radiant power emitted per sources, including that part of the hydrogen arc area per solid angle, L =(W cm-2 sr-'). If the spectrum that is the subject of this paper. source emits a continuum, i.e., emits radiation at all The method depends upon the phenomenon that wavelengths near a particular wavelength, the the continuum emission coefficient for a strongly spectral radiance is the radiance per wavelength in- ionized hydrogen plasma which is in or close to the terval or bandpass, LA=(W cm-2 sr-1 nm-'). The condition of local thermodynamic equilibrium radiance will in general vary over the source area, (LTE) is calculable to within one percent [2], This the direction, and the wavelength. The definition follows from the fact that the essential spectro- assumes that the area, solid angle, and wavelength scopic constants, i.e., the continuum absorption co- band are small enough that the radiance does not efficients and transition probabilities, are exactly vary greatly within these quantities. Irradiance is known for atomic hydrogen. The continuum inten- the radiant power incident upon a target per area, sities emitted from a typical pure hydrogen wall- E = (W cm-2 ), and spectralirradiance is the radiant stabilized arc discharge in the spectral region power incident upon a target per area per wave- above 91.5 nm are optically thin and a function of length band, Ex=(W cm-2 nm'). A source of radi- the electron density and temperature [3,4]. In the ation may serve as a standard source of irradiance low power hydrogen arc the electron density 22 VoLurne 93, Number 1, Jantuary-February 1985 Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards plete, and any further increase in arc temperature 102 I - 12B L 5AB K Y00 ,Iff BLACKBODY results only in a gradual decrease in intensity be- cause of the decrease in the number density. The BLACKBODY LIMITED LINES FROM 12500K ARC weak wavelength dependence of this maximum seen in figure 2 occurs because of the change in the lD' 1- energy distribution of the equilibrated electrons as LLyax the electron temperature is varied. 1cm HYDROGEN ARC 0, 4.0- aE 3.0- _ x Or 124 nm E; 10-14 2.0- CARBON ARC - 3: 7 E I-4 30 WATT . / D2 LAMP I/ JoF go-2 - ,09 di OS- 37 _ z U- lC -3 - LS- ITUNG~STEN STRI i LAMP 2 I IIlL 0- 100 200) 300 400 l" am xfnml o l- 6 c00 eo000 20000 22030 Ti K) Figure 1. Cormpadamn9of spectral radiances fEr far t:V soures. The ogtput of tie Lydroger arc is given fSo she temrersatre of mairmu coninuum emnti on; the Obtputs of the other sources Figure 2. The emission coefficient for a I-atm hydrogen plasma are at typical operating conditions. in LTE as a function of tenperature for several wave- lengths:250amr (-); 200nr, (Rae); 150am (----2; and and temperature are determined from plasma diag- 124nn (- - >. nostics in the visible spectral region using available radiometric standards [3]. These quantities are then Figure 3 shows the measured radial dependence used to calculate the continuum intensities in the of the hydrogen continuum emission coefficient at VUV. There are known to be significant uncertain- 190 run and the corresponding calculated LTE ties in the plasma diagnostics, and as a result we temperature (2] for an arc current of 80A Because have adopted as our primary standard a higher the maximum in the coefficient is broad and the power hydrogen arc which operates such that a absolute magnitude of the peak intensity is not very 2-mm diameter wall-stabilized discharge reaches a sensitive to the electron temperature, the emission temperature of about 20,000 K.