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Feasibility of using silicon photodiodes for detection of femtosecond laser pulses

Recently, Ames Photonics have investigated the feasibility of using silicon photodiodes, like our Oculus USB photodetector, for detecting femtosecond laser pulse energy output. Silicon photodiodes offer potential advantages for the detection of ultrashort laser pulses. However, until now, no reliable information about saturation energy level, practical energy density and linearity of photodiodes under ultra-short laser pulse exposure has been available in the literature.

The results show that Si photodiode have several advantages compared to other commonly used photosensors, including:

  • Excellent linearity of output current as a function of incident light
  • Very high sensitivity-can typically resolve pJ levels
  • Spectral response from 190 nm to 1100 nm (Si), longer wavelengths with other semiconductor detectors

The complete report is available for download here.