New Hamamatsu Mini-Spectrometer Offers Increased Sensitivity |
01/07/2013 |
Building on the success of the original C10988MA mini-spectrometer, Hamamatsu Photonics introduces the new C10988MA-01 mini-spectrometer, which offers greatly increased sensitivity. At the peak sensitivity of 450 nanometres (nm), the C10988MA-01 offers an increase in sensitivity of more than 70% compared to the original version.
The C10988MA-01 is a unique, ultra-compact spectrometer built using micro-opto-electro-mechanical systems (MOEMS) technology. The C10988MA-01 is a thumb-sized device, measuring only 27.6 millimetres (mm) × 13mm × 16.8mm, which was developed for use in portable and hand-held devices where a standard mini-spectrometer would be too large and consume too much power. The C10988MA-01 is not only small; it is also lightweight at only 9 grams.
To achieve such a small size required combining Hamamatsu’s micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and image sensor technologies. The new device uses an aberration-corrected concave grating with a very short focal length and a blazed grating profile for high-diffraction efficiency. The grating is replicated on the top of a convex glass lens using nano-print technology. Directly opposite the grating is placed a dedicated complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) silicon image sensor with an on-chip slit. This 75 micrometre (µm) × 750µm slit is formed in the CMOS chip using MEMS technology. The distance between the sensor and the slit is 1mm while the grating to image sensor distance is 8.5mm.
Through the use of these novel techniques, the C10988MA-01 offers a spectral resolution of 14nm in the wavelength range of 340nm to 750nm, making it suitable for a range of visible light applications requiring a miniaturised spectrometer head. To aid initial evaluation, Hamamatsu offers a dedicated driver board, the C11351, with universal serial bus (USB) 2.0 connectivity and 16-bit analogue/digital resolution.
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