2

Recently i am using a LED as a photo detector . Follow by this instruction : http://makezine.com/projects/make-36-boards/how-to-use-leds-to-detect-light/

enter image description here

An opamp is used to convert the photocurrent from an LED into a proportional voltage (Vo) The author stated that "The Linear Technology LT1006 single-supply op-amp (IC1) provides a voltage output (Vo) that’s almost perfectly linear with respect to the intensity of the incoming light"

So is that true that Vo is linear proportional to light intensity ?

The Photon
  • 126,425
  • 3
  • 159
  • 304
Totally New
  • 353
  • 1
  • 4
  • 12
  • Possible duplicate: [How does a Watt (1mW from a laser) relate to Amps (20mA max current rating for collector of a phototransistor)?](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/108950/) – The Photon Apr 30 '17 at 16:23
  • i don't know about current, but _voltage_ from an externally-lit LED is proportional to the light intensity. given that, a transconductance amplifier would seem a better fit than a transimpedance amplifier... – dandavis May 01 '17 at 00:52

1 Answers1

5

It's mostly true, but it has little to do with the LT1006 specifically. Any op-amp with low input bias current and low voltage offset will be able to make a linear transimpedance amplifier over a fairly wide range of input currents.

And generally a photodiode will have a quite linear response as well, because each incident photon has a certain fixed probability of being absorbed and contributing a carrier pair to the photocurrent.

Obviously at very high signal levels, you could run into nonlinearity due to the op-amp saturating.

Note: Strictly we should be talking about an affine response rather than linear. There will be a small dark current term so that the response has the form:

$$I = {\mathcal R}P_i + I_D$$

where \$\mathcal R\$ is the photodiode responsivity, \$P_i\$ is the incident optical power, and \$I_D\$ is the dark current.

The dark current can be seen as the photodiode's response to the thermally generated background radiation produced by its surroundings.

The dark current can be a significant nonlinearity when measuring low input signal levels. However it is readily accounted for with a simple calibration procedure.

The Photon
  • 126,425
  • 3
  • 159
  • 304