Spectrometer

摘要

The invention relates to a spectrometer for measuring radiation intensities as a function of wavelength. In order to detect the radiation intensity, use is made of a photosemiconductor whose measuring sensitivity depends on the wavelength and, at the same time, on the pressure acting on it. By stepwise increase of the pressure and subtraction of the measured radiation intensities relating to sequential pressure values, the radiation intensity is determined as a function of wavelength. In an advantageous construction of the spectrometer, the pressure which is generated by electric voltages is applied to the photosemiconductors by means of piezoelectric elements. The measurements can also be carried out without mechanical movements of parts. A plurality of photosemiconductors can be arranged linearly (one-dimensional array) or in a plane (two-dimensional array). The invention can advantageously be applied to measure radiation intensities in the infrared, because there are photosemiconductors which have an adequate pressure dependence in this radiation range. Because of the small dimensions of the spectrometer, because no moving parts are required, it is possible to carry out measurements at very low temperatures, e.g. such as produced by cooling with liquid helium.