Cooling and shielding systems for infrared detectors - requirements and limits

This paper presents three main cooling systems used for infrared detectors. At first thermoelectric devices are discussed. They allow cooling down the detector with low efficiency and not to the very low temperature. They do not generate any vibrations and therefore are suitable for thermal detectors, where the microphone effect can decrease their performance. Photon detectors need to be cooled down even to 77K or better. The only way to have such deep cooling is to use the cooler based on thermodynamic cycle such as Stirling one. With the high efficiency one can easily obtain cryogenic temperature for a detector. The electromagnetic noise and vibration generation are the main disadvantages of using such devices. Joule-Thomson effect during gas expansion is 3^rd cooling system discussed in the paper. It is highly effective process, used for gas liquefaction too. The working gas is being removed during cooling into the atmosphere, so the need of continuous supplying with compressed one, what makes this system very difficult for remote applications. In the paper, simple calculations are presented to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of the different cooling systems