Understanding the Herschel-SPIRE bolometers

Abstract

Bolometers are very simple devices. In principle, the behaviour of a bolometer can be described by a simple model along with a small number of parameters. The SPIRE instrument for the Herschel Space Observatory contains five arrays of NTD germanium spiderweb bolometers containing up to 139 pixels. We show from characterisation measurements on the ground using the flight read-out system that the bolometers follow the ideal model extremely well, are very stable, and that the read-out system is sufficiently well behaved to take advantage of this. Calibration should be greatly simplified by being able to take advantage of this behaviour.

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