Brian Kirby
LASP
Mentors: Jerry Harder and Erik Richard

 

Abstract:
In order to understand the Sun and its influences on Earth?s climate,  accurate measurements of the Sun’s output need to be taken. This output, known as the solar irradiance, is broken into its individual wavelengths and is measured with high accuracy by the Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM). In order to meet the required accuracy of 0.01%, all sources of error in SIM must be understood and corrected.  One of the sources of error, is the change in radiant sensitivity, the ratio of current generated by a photodiode per watt of energy received, due to temperature fluctuations experienced by the photodiodes taking the solar irradiance measurements. This summer, Brian Kirby worked at LASP with Jerry Harder and Erik Richard on developing an experiment to determine the temperature coefficient of radiant sensitivity for the photodiodes used on the SIM instrument.  During this 30-minute presentation, Brian will discus how the experiment was preformed and will share the results of the experiment.