Gain determination of non-linear IR detectors with the differential photon transfer curve (dPTC) method

Conversion gain is a basic detector property which relates the raw counts in a pixel in data numbers (DN) to the number of electrons detected. The standard method for determining the gain is called the Photon Transfer Curve (PTC) method and involves the measurement the change in variance as a function of signal level. For non-linear IR detectors, this method depends strongly on the non-linearity correction and is therefore susceptible to systematic biases due to calibration issues. We have developed a new, robust, and fast method, the differential Photon Transfer Curve (dPTC) method, which is independent of non-linearity corrections, but still delivers gain values similar in precision but higher in accuracy.