The design and development of a tuneable and portable radiation source for in situ spectrometer characterisation

Abstract

For spectroradiometers, the characterisation of their wavelength scale and spectral bandwidth underpins the quality of measured data substantially. This characterisation can be performed using metrology-grade tuneable monochromatic sources, which are currently available only in a few laboratories worldwide. Yet in numerous applications, only the in-field calibration is a feasible solution. We have designed and developed a tuneable and portable radiation source (TuPS) in the wavelength range from 300 to 350 nm for the in-field characterisation of Dobson spectrometers' wavelength scale and slit function, with standard uncertainties better than 0.02 nm in wavelength and with the bandwidth of emitted radiation smaller than 0.13 nm full width at half maximum (FWHM). The TuPS is designed such that only minor modifications of its optical system extend/shift its spectral range towards visible and near-infrared spectral regions and thus expand its application for characterisation of any spectroradiometers in the relevant spectral region of interest.