Software field widening of a Fourier-transform spectrometer using a large focal plane array.

Software field widening of a Fourier-transform spectrometer is investigated with a large multielement focal plane array detector. Experimental results are presented that stem from previous work in instrument line-shape correction. Here, pixels with calibrated wavenumber scales are binned to emulate a large-area single-pixel detector. The field of view and the signal-to-noise ratio are accordingly increased. A monochromatic source is used to characterize signal-to-noise ratio gain, and limitations are discussed. This work is motivated by the emergence of affordable infrared integrating cameras, which enable Fourier-transform spectrometers to perform massively parallel spatial sampling.