This course explains basic principles, phenomenology, markets and applications of infrared imagery. A primary goal of the course is to give the student a basic top-level understanding of the field, and the state of the art. A broad brush, top level discussion of terminology, history, phenomenology, radiometry, markets and applications will be given with up to date examples. Anyone who wants to answer questions such as, "Is MWIR or LWIR better?”, “What’s the difference between a Camera Core and an IDCA?” and “What’s the difference between HgCdTe, SLS and QDOTS” will benefit from this course.

This course explains basic technology and new market trends for infrared sensors for commercial and military applications. The course starts with a brief introduction to Infrared physics, phenomenology and history. Typical systems architectures will be discussed and how they may be changed by emerging technologies. The difficulties and barriers of introducing a new technology into Infrared cameras and systems will be covered. Potential disruptive technologies and embryonic technologies will be described, forecasted and applied to future markets and applications. New emerging applications and markets that are untouched, or little penetrated by the technology will be described, and the barriers that have prevented this technology to sufficiently enter these markets. The subject matter concentrated on infrared imagers (both commercial and military); although the images may not be presented to a human, but a computer, car or robot. Some non-imaging systems such as IRSTs, hyperspectral and sparse FPAs for certain applications are also discussed. Classic IR spectrometry, near-IR (as detected by silicon) and IR microscopy are not addressed.