Points to Consider While Choosing Fiber Optic Power Meters

What is a fiber optic power meter?

Fiber optic power meter usually measures how much light is coming out of a fiber optic cable. It can be used for determining the amount of light that is being generated by an optical source, or the amount of light that is being coupled into an optical light source.

Generally, the optical power is measured in dBm, or decibels referenced to 1mW. These devices do not measure the peak power but it measures the average optical power, so they are sensitive to the duty cycle of the data transmitted.

To the system being measured, their power and wavelength of the range have to be matched appropriately. Many power meters that are used to test communication networks are designed to work at 850nm, 1300nm and 1500nm wavelength ranges and in the power range of -15 to -35dBm for multimode links, or for single-mode links, it has to be 0-40dBm.

Different types of power meters those are available

You will find fiber optical power meter, like DMMs in a variety of types. Practically, the measurement uncertainty of all fiber optic power meters is the same but with optical connections, it is limited by the physical constraints of transferring standards.

No matter what the resolution of the display can be there are many meters that have an uncertainty of +/- 5% or approximately 0.2dB. Lower cost meters or those for field use usually have a resolution of 0.1dB, laboratory meters display 0.01dB, and on a few specialized meters, a resolution of 0.001dB is available. The fiber identifier proves to be very useful and in demand.

According to the test, the appropriate resolution for measurement should be chosen. To an uncertainty of 0.05dB and0.01dB resolution or less if in controlling the test conditions, Laboratory measurements of low-loss patch cables, connectors and splices can be made great care.

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