Pulse Power Measurement
Optical power meters usually display time averaged power. So for pulse measurements, the signal duty cycle must be known to calculate the peak power value. However, the instantaneous peak power must be less than the maximum meter reading, or the detector may saturate, resulting in a wrong average readings. Also, at low pulse repetition rates, some meters with data or tone detection may produce improper or no readings. A class of "high power" meters has some type of optical attenuating element in front of the detector, typically allowing about a 20 dB increase in maximum power reading. Above this level, an entirely different class of "laser power meter" instrument is used, usually based on thermal detection.
Read more about this topic: Optical Power Meter
Famous quotes containing the words pulse, power and/or measurement:
“Whoever has had the experience of the moral sentiment cannot choose but believe in unlimited power. Each pulse from that heart is an oath from the Most High. I know not what the word sublime means, if it be not the intimations, in this infant, of a terrific force.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Speak, nameless, power and might;
when will you leave me quite?
when will you break my wings
or leave them utterly free
to scale heaven endlessly?”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“That’s the great danger of sectarian opinions, they always accept the formulas of past events as useful for the measurement of future events and they never are, if you have high standards of accuracy.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)