David Notebook: Difference between revisions

Running more tests with the PDA36A. I checked it from 5 to 100 nW as measured on the power meter. Using the cone helped cut down fluctuations down a lot. I found the response to be logarithmic when the gain was set to 0 dB as how I was using it on 8/8/14. I don't think this will work unless I can more accurately measure nW level beams with the power meter and then make a good regression equation for a logarithmic response. I then repeated these measurements with the gain at 60 dB and found the response to be much more linear. Data is [https://wiki.physics.wisc.edu/yavuz/images/2/29/Thorlabs_pda36a_response.xlsx here]. The signal isn't quite square waves at the 60 dB setting, but this doesn't matter as long as the response is linear since I'm just using a regression equation rather than trying to directly calculate the powers. Maybe I can find the best gain setting that gives the most linear response at these powers and get a good linear fit at slightly higher beam powers and extrapolate to the single nW level even though I can't measure those powers well with the power meter.