Various Spectrometer Readings

[Pman]

Would think something like this would be a decent investment for you Blord:yh:
Something to "play" with during your recovery.

 

[ARG]

I'll see what I can collect for you. I've got a 300mW mits I can test out.

If you have any harvested casio projector optics lying around, they should work very well. Find a collecting lens at least 3 cm diameter, and then a coupling lens (probably < 3 cm) to focus the spot into the fiber. The larger that first lens is, the easier it will be to focus into the fiber after the second optic. You could machine a small mount to keep them in line with each other, and stick it on a small camera tripod mount for easy alignment after the laser is turn on - lots you could do to make life a bit easier on yourself.

I use an Andor Shamrock 303i at work. Its gated for time resolved emissions, and self calibrates and everything. I wish it was my own!

What do you mean beyond the HeNe line? The stuff > 543? The calibration itself might not be so bad on the accuracy dimension, but the incident beam could be out of focus as it lands on the CCD. Could be re-focused if you're patient. I think there's a cylindrical lens you would have to rotate.. carefully. I think I've alignment instructions for that spectrometer typology - let me know if you want them, I can dig them up again.

I do have some old Casio lens' I can use

By HeNe line I mean the 633nm HeNe. It reads fine, but beyond that my 638nm mits diode is read ~660nm and my LPC-826 is reading ~638nm (I got the pictures mixed up above.)
I tried it just again to make sure I wasn't seeing things, and sure enough the multimode mits 500mW is reading 660nm. Odd.
I have the guide for adjusting the optics for re-cal but I think what I need is a known red line to fix this.

 

[Meatball]

Don't know what to make of that. The only possible explanation would be those damned laser diode gnomes that steal into the night, swapping out 800ma 12Xs for LEDs, randomly messing with green module pots and throwing oil and gunk onto lenses and diode windows. We'll catch them yet.

Do you suppose this might help?

^^The lamp is still good - several decent "red" lines to work with, a very strong 763 line and a 696 that might be helpful.

I would still wonder about those reds be swapped however - have you tested an 808 on it yet? It might be a little wide banded, but as long as it doesn't say 850 or something like that I wouldn't be worried for disaster.

EDIT: What is the entrance slit on your unit? Is it adjustable?

 

[ARG]

Mecury Argon lamp The amount of lines on that, wow! The 404 and 407 lines would be ideal for the near UV calibration, as I think a regular merc lamp only gives off 365nm, which is too low for my spectrometer.

My spectrometer only reads from 390nm-725nm appx, so I can't test with my 808nm pumping laser

I don't know what the entrance slit is on the spectrometer, but it isn't adjustable.

 

[Cyparagon]

I never saw the point of taking screen shots of monochromatic graphs. "A picture is worth a thousand words" usually, but in this case, it's worth ~3.5 digits - less than 1 word :undecided:.

Call me lazy, but I prefer to say "the diode measured 661.5nm" :na:

CCDs have issues related to their dark current...http://www.oceanoptics.com/products/sts.asp

Practically Irrelevant when the "light current" is 2 orders of magnitude higher than the "dark current". It's only a problem when taking readings on very dim sources.
Even then, it's tolerable. Tritium vial as an example:

I think a regular merc lamp only gives off 365nm, which is too low for my spectrometer.

365 is the "I-line." There's also a strong "H-line" at 404.7nm... or evidently 404.656nm anyway.

Here's a regular mercury lamp, except it's ballasted by a tungsten filament that accounts for the small hill in the red
So you've got UV, violet, blue, green, and two close yellows if you need them. All from a <$5 lamp.

 

[Meatball]

ARG, just let me know if you need to use my Hg lamp. I'm not using it for anything important.