Optical Sensor Performance Research

The tools used to detect a laser’s wavelength are expensive and fragile.  I was part of the team that developed a much less costly and more robust alternative.  It’s based on a color sensor made for consumer electronics.

A diagram of a typical color sensor.  The squares represent the photodiodes, and their colors represent the color component measured by that photodiode (as shown in the TCS3414 data sheet, manufactured by AMS/TAOS).

The color sensor uses an array of filtered photodiodes (image above).  Because the diodes have different filters with different absorption spectra, the sensor can determine the color of ambient light.  Color is determined by wavelength, so the sensor could potentially be used to measure wavelength.  However, it was only designed for use with broadband light – the kind of light that would fill a room.  In my research, I extended the use of color sensors to work with laser light.  These results were published in Optics Express.

This work included the following:

1)      Identifying conditions that affect measurements

2)      Temperature controller implementation

3)      Programming the sensor’s computer interface (using C/C++, and LabView languages)

4)      Computational algorithm

5)      Sensor calibration

6)      Statistical performance analysis