Methodology development for calibration assessment using quasi-deep convective clouds with application to Aqua MODIS TEB.

Deep convective clouds (DCC) are identified by using a combination of brightness temperature (BT) and visible reflectance thresholds. Moreover, it is common practice to use daytime DCC measurements for the calibration assessment of reflective solar and longwave infrared (LWIR) bands. The DCC cold core is suitable for the MODIS Thermal Emissive Bands (TEB) calibration assessment; more specifically, for the offset effect in the quadratic calibration function. However, the reflected solar radiance in the daytime DCC measurements affects the midwave infrared (MWIR) bands. Thus, an assessment over low BT measurements is not applicable to these bands. Because of this, a quasi-DCC (qDCC) technique is developed for the MWIR bands calibration assessment. The feasibility of using nighttime DCC measurements is demonstrated by comparing the DCC and daytime qDCC techniques. A DCC normalization method is also developed to remove the DCC fluctuation impact and enhance the assessment accuracy. The DCC measurements' distribution is asymmetrical for all TEB, and their BT ranges fluctuate around 20 K. An empirical model is developed and applied to normalize the measurements over DCC to a reference temperature. After the normalization, the DCC and qDCC measurements' distributions are close to symmetrical and Gaussian in shape. These improvements are applied to the Aqua MODIS instrument. The calibration stability, noise performance, and consistency are evaluated for all Aqua MODIS TEB. Lastly, the Aqua MODIS formatter reset effect on the calibration offset bias between two mirror sides is analyzed, and a calibration coefficient correction is proposed for future calibration improvements.

GOES-16/ABI Thermal Emissive Bands Assessments using GEO-LEO-GEO Double Difference.

Geostationary satellite (GOES)-16/ABI and Himawari-8/AHI represent a significant improvement over the imagers on board previous GOES. Their bands 7-16 are infrared channels covering the 3.9 to 13.3 µm spectral range and with a sub-point spatial resolution of 2 km. Their spectral coverage of the thermal emissive bands (TEB) are almost identical and both instruments employ similar calibration strategies using an on-board blackbody (BB) and a space look. The inter-comparison between the two instruments will be very helpful for their calibration assessments and their product quality enhancements. GOES-16 was launched on November 19, 2016, initially to a test position at 89.5° West and reached its operational position (longitude of 75.2° West) on December 11, 2017. The Himawari-8 spacecraft was launched on October 7, 2014 and the observation focuses on Asia-Pacific region. In this work, an inter-comparison of their TEB measurement is performed using double difference with Aqua MODIS. The same type of scenes are selected for the two instruments and their measurements with the closest observation times are compared with Aqua MODIS matching bands. The view angle effect is corrected and their spectral mismatching effect is estimated. The dependence on the scene uniformity is analyzed. The ABI-AHI differences are within 0.3K for bands 10 (7.35 µm), 11 (8.44 µm), 12 (9.64 µm), and 14 (11.24 µm), and up to 0.8K difference for bands 15 (12.38 µm) and 16 (13.28 µm). The ABI precision is better than AHI for all TEB and their image navigation and registration (INR) precisions are comparable. In general, the ABI performance before and after re-location is consistent.

Aqua and Terra MODIS RSB calibration comparison using BRDF modeled reflectance.

The inter-comparison of MODIS reflective solar bands onboard Aqua and Terra is very important for assessment of each instrument's calibration. One of the limitations is the lack of simultaneous nadir overpasses. Their measurements over a selected Earth view target have significant differences in solar and view angles, which magnify the effects of atmospheric scattering and Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF). In this work, an inter-comparison technique is formulated after correction for site's BRDF and atmospheric effects. The reflectance measurements over Libya desert sites 1, 2, and 4 from both the Aqua and Terra MODIS are regressed to a BRDF model with an adjustable coefficient accounting for calibration difference. The ratio between Aqua and Terra reflectance measurements are derived for bands 1 to 9 and the results from different sites show good agreement. For year 2003, the ratios are in the range of 0.985 to 1.010 for band 1 to 9. Band 3 shows the lowest ratio 0.985 and band 1shows the highest ratio 1.010. For the year 2014, the ratio ranges from approximately 0.983 for bands 2 and 1.012 for band 8. The BRDF corrected reflectance for the two instruments are also derived for every year from 2003 to 2014 for stability assessment. Bands 1 and 2 show greater than 1% differences between the two instruments. Aqua bands 1 and 2 show downward trends while Terra bands 1 and 2 show upward trends. Bands 8 and 9 of both Aqua and Terra show large variations of reflectance measurement over time.

Reconfiguration of spectral absorption features using a frequency-chirped laser pulse.

A technique is proposed to manipulate atomic population in an inhomogeneously broadened medium, which can set an arbitrary absorption spectrum to a uniform transparency (erasure) or to a nearly complete inversion. These reconfigurations of atomic spectral distribution are achieved through excitation of electronic transitions using a laser pulse with chirped frequency, which precisely affects selected spectral regions while leaving the rest of the spectrum unperturbed. An erasure operation sets the final atomic population inversion to zero and the inversion operation flips the population between the ground and the excited states, regardless of the previously existing population distribution. This technique finds important applications both in optical signal processing, where fast, recursive processing and high dynamic range are desirable and in quantum memory and quantum computing, which both require high efficiency and high fidelity in quantum state preparation of atomic ensembles. Proof-of-concept demonstrations were performed in a rare-earth doped crystal.

Non-degenerated sequential time-bin entanglement generation using periodically poled KTP waveguide.

We have experimentally implemented a non-degenerate sequential time-bin entangled photon-pair source using a periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate waveguide at a clock rate of 1 GHz. The wavelengths of the signal and idler are 895 nm and 1310 nm, which are suitable for local and long distance optical communications, respectively and the 895 nm signal is also suitable for quantum memory research. A silicon avalanche photodiode is used to detect the photons at 895 nm while a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide based up-conversion detector is used to detect the photons at 1310 nm. The measured entangled-photon-pair flux rate is 650 Hz and the fringe visibility for two-photon interference is 79.4% without noise subtraction.

Multigigahertz range-Doppler correlative signal processing in optical memory crystals.

Analog optical signal processing of complex radio-frequency signals for range-Doppler radar information is theoretically described and experimentally demonstrated using crystalline optical memory materials and off-the-shelf photonic components. A model of the range-Doppler processing capability of the memory material for the case of single-target detection is presented. Radarlike signals were emulated and processed by the memory material; they consisted of broadband (> 1 GHz), spread-spectrum, pseudorandom noise sequences of 512 bits in length, which were binary phase-shift keyed on a 1.9 GHz carrier and repeated at 100 kHz over 7.5 ms. Delay (range) resolution of 8 ns and Doppler resolution of 130 Hz over 100 kHz were demonstrated.

Recovery of spectral features readout with frequency-chirped laser fields.

A data-processing technique is proposed for use with conventional frequency-chirped absorption spectroscopy to ensure accurate mapping of spectral features into time-domain signatures with arbitrarily fast readout chirp rates. This technique recovers the spectrum from a signal that is distorted owing to the fast chirp rate and therefore facilitates fast measurement of the spectral features over a broad spectral range with high resolution. Both numerical simulations and experimental results are presented.