Performance of the pyroelectric vidicon for thermal imaging in the 8—14 micron band

The performance of a television camera using the one-inch pyroelectric vidicon has been measured. The results are compared with an analysis which attempts to identify the factors limiting the performance of the system. Two modes of operation are considered; chopping the incident radiation with a shutter and panning the camera. The measurements indicate that the camera panning mode produces the better performance. At low spatial frequency a scene temperature difference of 0.2°C may be detected.