TCD1304-based spectrometer - Part 1

In this video I demonstrate a kind of proof of concept for my TCD1304-based spectrometer. I managed to get some really nice optical system that used to be a spectrometer. The only missing thing was the detector, but luckily I happened to have a circuit developed just for this purpose. Originally when I started to work with the TCD1304 linear CCD, one of my plans was to build such a device. Now, I can finally present a working prototype. The prototype consists of an optical bench -that consists of a slit, a collimator, a diffraction grating and a focusing mirror-, and a linear sensor which is my custom-made TCD1304 PCB.

I calibrated my spectrometer using two laser pointers. Lasers emit coherent light which means that all of the photons of the beam have the same frequency (wavelength). So, they produce a very distinct and sharp peak on the detector. Using these pointers I could assign a wavelength to each pixels on the linear CCD array. Then, I measured different light sources, LEDs and checked how their spectra looks like.

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Some extra resources

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STM32F401CCU6 microcontroller

TCD1304 Linear CCD

Optical bench

This enclosure contains all the necessary optical components: slit, collimator, diffraction grating, and focusing mirror.

Spectra

Here you can see the two calibrating peaks (green and red lasers), and the spectra of the different LEDs. You can see how broad their spectra are.

CCD PCB

This is the auxiliary circuit for driving and reading the CCD.

Assembled PCB with microcontroller

Front view

A little close-up

Behind the scenes

Signal conditioning circuit

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