Monitoring and Quality Control

In the lighting industry, the focus is not only on manufacturers of different light bulbs and LEDs but the companies involved in testing and validating these bulbs and LEDs and the assembly of these products in, for instance, street lights and solar simulators as well.

Since these products emit light, the connection with spectroscopy is easily made. In this industry, spectroscopy is mainly utilized for real-time monitoring and quality control before, during, and after manufacturing.

Avantes offers aside a wide selection of spectrometers and the necessary accessories like integrating spheres and cosine correctors to accommodate measurements for the lighting industry.

These systems often need intensity calibrated to give the most accurate results. Avantes offers in-house calibration services as well as field calibration sources.

Radiometry and Photometry

Lighting is a form of electromagnetic radiation. Radiometry is essentially the measurement of the electromagnetic radiation or wave generated by the oscillation of photons. The frequency of these waves, or the wavelength, determines the amount of energy the photons carry and hence the ‘color’ of the radiation. Different parameters are defined within the field of radiometry, such as irradiance, radiant flux, and radiant intensity. Radiometry measurements can be done in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelength ranges.

Photometry, however, concerns the measurement of radiometric sources and their interaction with the human eye. Like radiometry, photometry involves different parameters, such as luminous flux, intensity, and illuminance.

Avantes instruments support radiometric measurements in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelength ranges from 250-2500 nm and photometric measurements in the visible range from 380-780 nm. For these applications, the AvaSpec-ULS2048CL-EVO is the most common option.

Identifying Lighting Products

Besides the parameters mentioned above, other specific parameters describe the quality of a lighting product. The parameters are used for describing the color, dominant wavelengths, and calculated color temperatures to identify and document the specifics of different lighting products.

The lighting industry is rapidly progressing into the new dimensions of opportunity provided by solid-state lighting. Especially Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) and Organic LEDs (OLEDs) will replace traditional lightning and fluorescent lights in the coming decades. To have uniform lightning, the LEDs used must match in color. These so-called color parameters of LEDs can be determined by a radiometric calibrated fiber-coupled spectrometer, such as the AvaSpec-ULS2048CL-EVO. An essential aspect of this application is the speed and accuracy with which the LEDs are classified. The AvaSpec-ULS2048CL-EVO spectrometers can run at high-speed integration and data transfer times, allowing the LED sorting machine to run at maximum speed.

Why choose Avantes for your lighting application?

  • Modular products for flexible setups
  • Fast and accurate measurements
  • Real-time process monitoring
  • Calibration capabilities including intensity and field calibrations

Contact us

These include some of the products mentioned in the application examples above. Contact one of our sales engineers for advice to find the perfect setup for your specific application.

Application Examples

Below are some detailed application notes on various uses of spectroscopy in the lighting industry.