Sciencemadness Discussion Board

High Speed Photoreceiver?

MagicJigPipe - 27-11-2008 at 07:37

This is such a simple question I had to think twice before posting it but I can't find the answer anywhere.

What is this used for exactly?

I know it has something to do with fiberoptics but it says that it can also accept input from "free space" so there must be other uses. Is it just an amplifier?

At first I thought it was a detector for determining the frequencies of light sources, but now I'm not sure.

Thanks in advance.

watson.fawkes - 27-11-2008 at 09:18

Quote:
Originally posted by MagicJigPipe
I know it has something to do with fiberoptics but it says that it can also accept input from "free space" so there must be other uses. Is it just an amplifier?
Yes. It's a broad-spectrum, very fast amplifier. You'd use the free-space input with a beam line or analogous optics train.

Twospoons - 27-11-2008 at 17:08

Actually, its a device for extracting money from optics researchers. :D

not_important - 27-11-2008 at 23:38

It's more of a research tool for any experimental lashup where you wish to detect moderately fast pulses of light. Things related to fluorescence, bap a sample with a short pulse of light and observe the timing of the excited state, stuff like that.

For messing with fiber optics in the more typical data transmission mode, you'll want detectors similar to these http://www.u2t.de/en/products/