NEP – Noise Equivalent Power by Thorlabs 2026-10-24
The detector manufacturer's technical note defines noise-equivalent power relative to unit signal-to-noise ratio and a 1 Hz detection bandwidth, and explains how integrated noise changes with bandwidth.
Detector noise and graphical reading. Noise-equivalent power specifies the incident optical power producing signal-to-noise ratio one, with the electrical bandwidth and averaging convention stated. A spectral NEP has units ; a band-integrated NEP has units W. Specific detectivity normalizes the latter by detector area and noise bandwidth:Its usual unit, the Jones, is . Removing the expected square-root area and bandwidth dependence helps compare different detector sizes and readout bandwidths, provided noise conditions and spectral response are comparable. This does not normalize away every background, temperature or implementation difference.
Reading the native embedded voltage plot gives approximate means , and . The one-second root mean square scatter is about ; the plotted peak-to-peak excursions are larger and must not be substituted for an root mean square noise. Independent graphical digitization of the blue trace gives means near V and scatters about – V, consistent with this estimate. These are readings from a drawing, not exact original data.
The supplied Planck approximation gives and in . Thus the noise-equivalent radiance of one one-second sample isHere the calibrating means are used to determine the response slope; their own uncertainty is included explicitly in the final scene estimate below.
Optical throughput and detectivity. A paraxial cone has half-angle approximately and projected solid angle approximately . With and ,Using the exact cone angle gives projected etendue , within the intended approximation. The radiance noise corresponds to detector power noiseThe wavenumber bandwidth is and must match the radiance's per-wavenumber unit; it is not an electrical noise bandwidth. For the common order-of-magnitude assignment to a one-second sample,Area in the last expression is . For a specified one-second boxcar with white noise, the one-sided equivalent noise bandwidth is instead . That convention gives spectral NEP and Jones. The source does not specify the electrical filter, so the two conventions should not be mixed or assigned spurious precision.
Two-point retrieval and its uncertainty. Assume linear, stable response for the three views. The radiometer two-point calibration isWith target radiances treated as known, differentiating givesNotice for an intermediate scene: raising the hot voltage while keeping the scene voltage fixed reduces the inferred scene radiance. Numerically , in radiance units per volt.
The scene interpolation fraction is about , giving andFor independent white noise in each view, each hundred-sample mean has standard error . The radiance error isUsing the given temperature sensitivity,A scatter estimate closer to V changes this to roughly K. These are random standard errors under the averaging assumptions. Target-temperature/emissivity uncertainty, response drift and atmospheric or surface-emissivity corrections are separate: the retrieved quantity is a brightness temperature, not automatically the true sea-surface temperature.
Use one spectral resolution element, , and assume comparable angular resolution horizontally and vertically, so the pixel solid angle is . The question specifies only the vertical angle; without an assumption about horizontal field of view the diameter is not unique. Interpret throughput as dimensionless transmission. With primary collecting area , the power in that element iswhen is in square metres. There is no extra factor of multiplying the supplied spectral radiance.
For an integration time s, the order-of-magnitude effective noise bandwidth is Hz. The root-mean-square noise-equivalent power is then W.[ref]
NEP – Noise Equivalent Power by Thorlabs. p. 1, NEP Definition; p. 2, equations (2)–(3): minimum power and averaging time
A signal-to-noise ratio of 10 requires W, and thereforeAn ideal rectangular average of a one-sided white noise spectral density has , giving cm instead. A circular field with diameter changes the diameter by another order-unity factor. These convention choices all require an aperture substantially larger than the mm diffraction estimate, so signal collection is the stronger constraint. The estimate treats the quoted NEP as applicable to the reconstructed channel; a detailed Fourier transform spectroscopy design would also specify scan weighting, background and how interferogram noise propagates into that channel.