Towards quantitative small-scale thermal imaging

Quantitative thermal imaging has the potential of reliable temperature measurement across an entire field-of-view. This non-invasive technique has applications in aerospace, manufacturing and process control. However, robust temperature measurement on the sub-millimetre (30 μm) length scale has yet to be demonstrated. Here, the temperature performance and size-of-source (source size) effect of a 3-5 μm thermal imaging system have been assessed. In addition a technique of quantifying thermal imager non-uniformity is described. An uncertainty budget is constructed, which describes a measurement uncertainty of 640 mK (k=2) for a target with a size of 10 mm. The results of this study provide a foundation for developing the capability for confident quantitative sub-millimetre thermal imaging.