LED testing: B&W Tek and Konica Minolta partner and launch low-cost LED irradiance meter

Sept. 23, 2010

Konica Minolta Sensing Americas has partnered with B&W Tek on a new low-cost TE-cooled miniature spectral irradiance meter, the SpectraRad.

Gail Overton

Ramsey, NJ--Konica Minolta Sensing Americas (KMSA), a provider of products for the industrial measurement of color, light, and shape, has partnered with B&W Tek, an instrumentation company producing optical spectroscopy and laser systems, to introduce a new, lower-cost option for LED characterization. Together, they announce the new thermoelectric (TE)-cooled miniature spectral irradiance meter, the SpectraRad, filling the need for a mid-range irradiance meter in the Konica Minolta product line.

The SpectraRad is designed for industrial and laboratory light measurement applications with a USB 2.0 interface. It is equipped with a right angle, fiber-optically coupled cosine corrector and is irradiance calibrated against a NIST traceable tungsten light source. BWSpec software, included, provides for the characterization and measurement of many lighting devices and systems. The standard software features include time line recording, data smoothing, illuminance (lux), chromaticity, color temperature, externally triggered pulsed light capturing, and other data-handling functions. The SpectraRad is ideal for lamp and LED characterization, color analysis, photostability testing, photobiology, and photochemistry.

The SpectraRad offers significant improvements over traditional filter-based technology instruments. Filter-based instruments have been desired for certain properties (cost, speed, and portability) but lack the resolution to accurately describe the spectral characteristics of a light source. Filter-based instruments only acquire three data points across the entire spectrum of light to yield colorimetric values. This is accomplished by the use of filters corresponding to the normal human eye response. These filters can only be manufactured to a certain degree of accuracy. Due to these facts, filter-based meters are susceptible to errors because of the deviation of the filter response from the ideal human eye response and the lack of resolution needed to accurately describe narrow bandwidth light sources.

The companies say SpectraRad avoids these problems at a comparable cost, higher speed, and small footprint because it acquires hundreds of data points across the visible spectrum. The 2048 pixel linear CCD array provides the precision required to accurately measure narrow-bandwidth light sources or LEDs. Having multiple sensors also enables the unit to report spectral data and display spectral graphs, making it the ideal instrument for evaluating LEDs.

The SpectraRad will be sold and distributed exclusively by KMSA in North America beginning Oct 1, 2010 and will be available for purchase online at www.shopkmsa.com.

SOURCE: Konica Minolta Sensing Americas; www.konicaminolta.com/sensingusa/news/Konica-Minolta-Sensing-Americas-and-B-W-Tek-Inc-Announce-SpectraRad-Irradiance-Meter

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.