> Next comes the detector. How are we gonna detect light from a range of angles with only a single 'pixel' of photodiode? We mount the photodiode on a motor and scan it across! To do this, I purchased a stepper-driven linear stage from Amazon for $50. This little stage is quite well-built and allows a resolution-per-step of 5 um, more than enough for our resolution.
So instead of using an expensive array of InGaAs sensors, he uses a single sensor ("pixel") and use a motor to physically scan across space.
For my previous work, I used industrial and scientific IR spectrometers costing above 100k USD. While the sensitivity of the physical machines is important (especially for basic scientific research), it's often the software that makes or breaks the usage case. Modern spectrometer software contains advanced signal processing and machine learning.
> Next comes the detector. How are we gonna detect light from a range of angles with only a single 'pixel' of photodiode? We mount the photodiode on a motor and scan it across! To do this, I purchased a stepper-driven linear stage from Amazon for $50. This little stage is quite well-built and allows a resolution-per-step of 5 um, more than enough for our resolution.
So instead of using an expensive array of InGaAs sensors, he uses a single sensor ("pixel") and use a motor to physically scan across space.
For my previous work, I used industrial and scientific IR spectrometers costing above 100k USD. While the sensitivity of the physical machines is important (especially for basic scientific research), it's often the software that makes or breaks the usage case. Modern spectrometer software contains advanced signal processing and machine learning.