文摘
The emissivity of most material surfaces that can be used as radiation sources is a function of wavelength. On the other hand, blackbody cavities with emissivities higher than 0.995 in a wide wavelength range are readily available in many laboratories. If it were possible to attenuate by a constant factor the radiation emitted by those blackbodies, then they could be used as gray-body radiators. A neutral density filter is not an option to attenuate the radiation from a blackbody source because its transmittance is wavelength dependent. Optical choppers, usually rotating disk shutters, are widely used to modulate the intensity of a light beam. The apparent transmittance of an optical chopper is defined in terms of the mark-to-space ratio. Most optical choppers have a 1:1 ratio which would be equivalent to 50 % transmittance. To attenuate the radiation coming from a blackbody, the optical chopper should have a stable rotating speed and a high chopping frequency so its mark-to-space cycle time is very short compared to a radiation thermometer response time. If this condition is fulfilled, the radiation thermometer would display a temperature reading as if it were aiming to a gray-body at the temperature of the blackbody and with an emissivity equal to the optical chopper transmittance. This method to obtain a gray-body radiator using a blackbody source and an optical chopper is discussed, and some measurements including its uncertainty analysis are reported. Keywords Blackbody Emissivity Gray-body Radiance temperature Transmittance