Hi all, So another crazy idea of a project/ physics lab. I went looking on the web for a decent resource.. couldn't find one, so I made a little intro here,
So that's the first thing to check. Get a laser diode and measure photo-current at proper distance away, and then measure BW (of diode).
If that looks OK then full speed ahead! I should be able to get something up and running in ~six months?
I've go a bunch of ideas I'd like to talk about.. But first a laser diode (750- 900 nm?) and a PD.
George H.
*I talked with this a bit with Phil H. He was concerned that a laser diode is not a thermal source... which very well might be right... (I need to do the experiment.) I tried to do this measurement (excess noise, single detector) with a Rb discharge lamp, small iris, and PD detector. There just wasn't enough light. (According to Bloom and Bell, (first guys to write about Rb lamps) when run at maximum light The intensity is such that each Rb atom within one optical path length of the surface emits one photon per Rb lifetime. So I'm hoping the laser diode with photons created all along it's length will have enough.