A preliminary evaluation of active millimeter-wave radiometry at W-band for enhancement of material contrasts

This paper introduces active radiometry, an mm-wave imaging technique where thermal excitation is exploited to enhance the contrast attained from radiometric measurements at mm-wave frequencies. By combining an off-the-shelf W-band radiometer with a digitally modulated IR laser source, the attainable contrast between various materials to both transient and continuously modulated thermal excitations is evaluated. Initial laboratory measurements of the active radiometer concept are presented and discussed.