Power Meters FAQ's

Integrating Sphere

Among the Integrating Sphere accessories offered, there are “Port Plugs” (white), and “Port Covers” (black). What’s the difference?

03/14/17

An unused port should be closed, to prevent unwanted light from entering the sphere. Closing it with a diffuse white port plug, however, adds the surface area of that plug to the (diffuse white) effective area of the sphere that is doing the “integrating”. For a calibrated integrating sphere sensor, this change in the behavior of the sphere changes its calibration, and results in incorrect readings. In such applications, a black “Port Cover” should be used.

In the Integrating Sphere specifications, what is the meaning of “Sensitivity to beam size/angle”?

03/06/19

In general, as the divergence angle of the beam entering the integrating sphere increases - and as its diameter increases – the assumptions on which we base the sphere’s performance (infinite reflections inside the sphere walls, perfectly uniform distribution of light inside the sphere, etc.) become less correct. We therefore specify the maximum beam divergence (such as +\- 40 deg), and we also state the maximum possible change in reading caused by change in beam size. For the IS6 for example, we state in the data sheet that the maximum additional uncertainty due to beam size is only +/- 1% for beam divergence < 30 degrees, and +/- 3% for beam divergence > 30 degrees.
To put this in some practical terms: If you measure the power using a beam that is not much bigger than a few mm x a few mm, that has a relatively small divergence angle, and is centered on the sphere’s input port aperture, you can safely ignore this additional uncertainty.

Can I use my IS6-D Integrating Sphere (which is normally used for measuring Divergent beams) to measure a Collimated beam? I know that normally one would use an IS6-C for Collimated beams, but can I manage with my -D sphere on a 1-time basis?

02/02/22

Here is a trick that would make this possible:
The beam should be aimed so that it is incident close to the detector port (but not hitting the baffle) – as shown in this drawing:

Surface Contamination

This way the "first bounce" will be directed to the opposite side of the sphere, ensuring that the detector will in fact see only light from the "second bounce" and onward, i.e. light that has been uniformly distributed around the inner sphere surface (normally, light from the "first bounce" of a collimated beam is not yet uniformly distributed and we don’t want the detector to see it – that is the main idea behind the different C and D configurations. This trick gets around that).