Standoff passive video imaging at 350 GHz with 251 superconducting detectors

Daniel Becker; Cale Gentry; Ilya Smirnov; Peter Ade; James Beall; Hsiao-Mei Cho; Simon Dicker; William Duncan; Mark Halpern; Gene Hilton; Kent Irwin; Dale Li; Nicholas Paulter; Carl Reintsema; Robert Schwall; Carole Tucker

doi:10.1117/12.2050712

9 June 2014 Standoff passive video imaging at 350 GHz with 251 superconducting detectors

Daniel Becker, Cale Gentry, Ilya Smirnov, Peter Ade, James Beall, Hsiao-Mei Cho, Simon Dicker, William Duncan, Mark Halpern, Gene Hilton, Kent Irwin, Dale Li, Nicholas Paulter, Carl Reintsema, Robert Schwall, Carole Tucker

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 9078, Passive and Active Millimeter-Wave Imaging XVII; 907804 (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2050712
Event: SPIE Defense + Security, 2014, Baltimore, MD, United States

Abstract

Millimeter wavelength radiation holds promise for detection of security threats at a distance, including suicide bomb belts and maritime threats in poor weather. The high sensitivity of superconducting Transition Edge Sensor (TES) detectors makes them ideal for passive imaging of thermal signals at these wavelengths. We have built a 350 GHz video-rate imaging system using a large-format array of feedhorn-coupled TES bolometers. The system operates at a standoff distance of 16m to 28m with a spatial resolution of 1:4 cm (at 17m). It currently contains one 251-detector subarray, and will be expanded to contain four subarrays for a total of 1004 detectors. The system has been used to take video images which reveal the presence of weapons concealed beneath a shirt in an indoor setting. We present a summary of this work.

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Daniel Becker, Cale Gentry, Ilya Smirnov, Peter Ade, James Beall, Hsiao-Mei Cho, Simon Dicker, William Duncan, Mark Halpern, Gene Hilton, Kent Irwin, Dale Li, Nicholas Paulter, Carl Reintsema, Robert Schwall, and Carole Tucker "Standoff passive video imaging at 350 GHz with 251 superconducting detectors", Proc. SPIE 9078, Passive and Active Millimeter-Wave Imaging XVII, 907804 (9 June 2014); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2050712

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