Development of an energy meter for nanosecond light pulses
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Abstract
The aim of this bachelor project was to develop an energy meter for nanosecond laser pulses by utilizing a microcontroller and thereby creating an Embedded Measurement System (EMS) as a cost-effective alternative to commercial energy meters. The sensor used was a biased photodetector operating in a linear regime of output power with respect to input power. The development involved using an oscilloscope to analyze of potential circuits, and then following up by developing a program on a Teensy 3.2 microcontroller to replace the oscilloscope. The results indicate that this is a viable method for measuring variations in energy of nanosecond light pulses, as the output signal in voltage is directly proportional to the pulses’ energy content if the photodiode is in its linear regime.