Abstract

We describe a method for efficiently determining the wavelength of a monochromatic source and provide an experimental proof-of-concept. The photomeasurement efficiency for a wavemeter can be written as η(N,q) = (1 + logqN)/m, where N is the number of spectral channels, q is the number of distinguishable output levels per photodetector, and m is the actual number of photomeasurements made. An implementation is developed that achieves a theoretical efficiency of η(N,q) = 1. The proof-of-concept experiment achieves efficiencies η = O(1), where the deviation from theory is attributable to well-known optical effects and should be correctable in future versions.

© 2004 Optical Society of America

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History
Original Manuscript: August 13, 2004
Revised Manuscript: November 30, 2004
Published: December 13, 2004

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Author Affiliations

P. Potuluri, M. Gehm, M. Sullivan, D. Brady

Duke University

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