Characterization of the stray light in a space borne atmospheric AOTF spectrometer

Acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) spectrometers are being criticized for spectral leakage, distant side lobes of their spectral response function (SRF), or the stray light. SPICAM-IR is the AOTF spectrometer in the range of 1000-1700 nm with a resolving power of 1800-2200 operating on the Mars Express interplanetary probe. It is primarily dedicated to measurements of water vapor in the Martian atmosphere. SPICAM H2O retrievals are generally lower than simultaneous measurements with other instruments, the stray light suggested as a likely explanation. We report the results of laboratory measurements of water vapor in quantity characteristic for the Mars atmosphere (2-15 precipitable microns) with the Flight Spare model of SPICAM-IR. We simulated the measured spectra with HITRAN-based synthetic model, varying the water abundance, and the level of the stray light, and compared the results to the known amount of water in the cell. The retrieved level of the stray light, assumed uniformly spread over the spectral range, is below 1-1.3.10(-4). The stray may be responsible for the underestimation of water abundance of up to 8%, or 0.6 pr. mu m. The account for the stray light removes the bias completely; the overall accuracy to measure water vapor is similar to 0.2 pr. mu m. We demonstrate that the AOTF spectrometer dependably measures the water abundance and can be employed as an atmospheric spectrometer. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America