Calibration light source and method of calibrating spectrometers
AssigneeEndress+Hauser Optical Analysis, Inc.
InventorDarren Schipper
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A calibration light source includes: a broad band light source emitting light in a broad spectral range; and a filter receiving light emitted by the broad band light source and providing structured light by imposing an attenuation pattern exhibiting pattern features at multiple spectral reference lines on the received light such that an emission spectrum of the structured light emitted by the calibration light source exhibits distinct, identifiable emission spectrum features corresponding to the pattern features at the multiple spectral reference lines. A method of calibrating at least one spectrometer using the calibration light source is further disclosed.
Claims17
A calibration light source for calibrating at least one spectrometer, the calibration light source comprising:
- a broad band light source operable to emit light in a broad spectral range;
- and
- a filter configured to receive the light emitted by the broad band light source and to provide structured light by imposing a predefined attenuation pattern exhibiting pattern features at multiple spectral reference lines on the received light such that an emission spectrum of the structured light emitted by the calibration light source exhibits distinct emission spectrum features corresponding to the pattern features at the multiple spectral reference lines, wherein the predefined attenuation pattern is embodied to distribute the distinct emission spectrum features across a spectral measurement range of the at least one spectrometer to improve calibration accuracy.
A method of calibrating at least one spectrometer, the method comprising:
- providing a calibration light source comprising:
- a broad band light source operable to emit light in a broad spectral range;
- and
- a filter configured to receive the light emitted by the broad band light source and to provide structured light by imposing an attenuation pattern exhibiting pattern features at multiple spectral reference lines on the received light such that an emission spectrum of the structured light emitted by the calibration light source exhibits distinct emission spectrum features corresponding to the pattern features at the multiple spectral reference lines;
- providing a reference characteristic of the structured light emitted by the calibration light source, the reference characteristic including at least one of:
- the emission spectrum of the calibration light source;
- and the spectral reference lines at which the emission spectrum features of the emission spectrum of the calibration light source occur;
- and
- with each respective spectrometer:
- determining a calibration spectrum of the structured light emitted by the calibration light source;
- and
- calibrating the respective spectrometer based on the calibration spectrum and the reference characteristic.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.