Hello there.

 

I am working on a project that requires the long-wave IR monitoring of a powder bed. The bed is in a restricted access chamber and therefore optics have to be used to reflect the object. This is where the problem arises, my intention was to use a Enhanced Aluminium mirror to reflect the objects emitted IR into the camera, however the chamber is heated to 178 C therefore the mirror itself emits its own IR.

I am using an FLIR E40 IR camera.

 

Doe anyone have any ideas how to tackle the problem?

What's the purpose of the monitoring? Does the powder only emit thermal radiation or is there some spectroscopic signature you could monitor, and use a bandpass filter?

A very reflective mirror shouldn't emit IR by itself: these two are antagonist. That is, at one single wavelength, if a mirror reflects 99%, it can emit only 1%.

 

At long IR, most metals tend to be very reflective. Hence I wonder if maybe you aluminium is behind the glass, or if the aluminium has grown a too thick oxide (heat worsens that), or has an added protective layer that radiates IR.

 

If aluminium, blank and at the first glass' side, doesn't reflect enough, you can try gold, which oxidizes less when warm.