Measure a Wider Range of Laser Powers

September 22, 2016

OphirBlog

Finding a laser power meter and sensor to measure power is pretty simple.

(Ophir’s meters and PC interfaces are plug-and-play, so the decision of meter is really a matter of the features you need, not the laser you’re measuring.)

The sensor that will best measure your laserpower is a function of just three of your laser’s characteristics:

Wavelength
Power
Beam size

Now, even if you’re only measuring one laser, the power used is likely not a discrete number. It’s probably a range. So you want to check that your power sensor is both sensitive enough to detect low-level powers of your laser, while at the same time robust enough to handle the high end of your power range.

Additionally, you’ll probably want to keep a margin of error between your maximum expected power and the sensor damage threshold, just to be extra sure you stay in the clear.

So when all is said and done, you’re looking for a wide range of power. Now add to that the possibility that you have several lasers you’d like to measure, and you can see why sensor dynamic range is so important.

That’s why at Ophir, we’re always testing and tweaking our sensors to get you the widest possible dynamic range. Sometimes this means coming up with a completely new sensor or a new type of fan, disk coating, etc.

But at other times it’s simply a game of mix-and-match.

We recently combined the thermopile disk from the 30A sensor (10 mW – 30 W) with the fan of the F150A sensor (50 mW – 150 W) to create the new F50A sensor (10 mW – 50 W).

This combo-sensor gives you the ability to measure any laser from 10 mW to 50 W, which is a dynamic range of 3.7 decades (37 dB, power).

Questions? Leave them below and I’ll answer them personally.

Flickr creative commons image via Mattia Landoni