Publications

The National Bureau of Standards Special Publication 260–38 is a detailed description of the preparation and calibration of NBS Standard Reference Materials 2001 to 2008 and is intended primarily to be helpful to those who need such standard materials for calibrating their reflectometers: those concerned with solar energy conversion, remote sensing by infra‐red, industrial radiant heat transfer and appearance measurement, and the aerospace industry which uses data on absolute spectral reflectance to calculate heat transfer rates into and out of satellites and space vehicles. The standards described were prepared commercially by vacuum deposition of opaque coatings of gold or aluminium on polished substrates of fine‐annealed borosilicate glass. The near‐normal (9° from normal) spectral specular reflectance was measured by the multiple‐reflection technique, using four different combinations of source, spectrometer, and detector to cover the wavelength range from about 0·25µm to 30µm and beyond.