Electronic – Ultraviolet sensor response curve

ledlight-sensoruv

I did a search on "ultraviolet sensors" in this forum, and came up with only three results, so, it appears, that this has not been asked before.

I have a hand-held ultraviolet light sensor from Extech (Extech UV505) to measure power density from a 300 nm UV LED.

http://www.extech.com/UV505/

The UV LED is collimated with a lens at NA=0.9, and produces a good spot about 10 mm in diam. The output of the LED is listed as 30 mW at 6V, and yet the sensor reads 3 mW. The sensor is bigger than the spot. For another LED emitting at 365 nm, the sensor shows the expected value (or ballpark). Even though I mostly use the sensor for relative values, I need to have an idea of the power density to compare to published values. E.g. in the past people used UV lamps, and I am trying to replace the expensive 100W $5K lamp with a $200 LED.

Even though the specs of the sensitivity state "290-400nm", I suspect that the response is very much non-flat, and that the sensitivity in the 300/10 nm range is much smaller than at 365. The datasheet does say "peak at 365", that's as much of the spectrum as is available from the manual. I asked for the response curve from Extech, and their answer was "we do not have it", literally (facepalm).

What type of a sensor might this be, so I can look up the curve online? This must be an old technology, since the meter shows a similar number at 365 as an old UVP meter I borrowed from a colleague (the meter says 1991 on it). Interestingly, the UVP unit is still sold, and the design and the pricing both look as if it was still 1991:

https://www.coleparmer.ca/i/uvp-97-0015-02-uvx-digital-ultraviolet-intensity-meter-radiometer-without-sensor/9765110

Another puzzling feature about the Extech unit is that the sensor looks covered with a translucent plastic window which does not seem to be removable.

Best Answer

After much research, I purchased a calibrated 300 nm-calibrated sensor which did what I wanted. The cost was 3x the cost of the Extech meter (about 800 EUR) which is reasonable. Interestingly, the unit came with a motorola smartphone which communicated with the sensor via an app. My LED is rated at 30 mW, and my power reading was about 12 mW/cm2 from a re-focused spot from the LED which went through two UV lenses. Since the entire spot fit on the sensor (you could even see the blue spot by eye), I presume this means that the output is abt 12 mW.

https://sglux.de/en/datasheets-sensor-probes/uv-surface/