Abstract

Detectors of CO₂ laser radiation have become important with the increased interest in active IR systems, particularly for range-finding and anemometry. Use of liquid air cooling is a major drawback of wide-bandwidth detectors for heterodyne applications. Nonlinear photodetectors such as cadmium mercury telluride photoconductors are suitable as optical mixers since they can be used at thermoelectric temperatures. In principle, a shot-noise-limited performance can be achieved by increasing the local oscillator power.

© 1985 Optical Society of America