High-accuracy spectrometer for measurement of regular spectral transmittance.

A high-accuracy spectrometer has been developed for measuring regular spectral transmittance. The spectrometer is an automated, single-beam instrument that is based on a grating monochromator, reflecting optics, and an averaging sphere detector unit with a silicon photodiode. The uncertainties related to wavelength calibration, detector nonlinearity, system instability, beam displacement, polarization, stray light, interreflections, and beam uniformity are determined for the visible spectral range from 380 to 780 nm. A total uncertainty of 3 × 10(-4) (1σ) is estimated for transmittance measurements of homogeneous neutral-density filters. The uncertainty of the wavelength scale is 0.06 nm. As a specific application, calibration of V(λ)-correction filters is studied. To verify the accuracy of the transmittance measurements, a comparison of the measured and predicted transmittances of a sample of high-purity fused silica is made, revealing agreement at the 5 × 10(-4) level.