Construction and characterization of a phototherapy radiometer for optical radiation measurements

Abstract

It is necessary to measure the irradiance levels to evaluate the effective dose delivered to the neonate from phototherapy devices. For such purpose, a broadband phototherapy radiometer has been used for measuring these phototherapy irradiance doses of plurality types of phototherapy sources. A phototherapy radiometer has been designed and during the construction its optical characteristics has been tested in collaboration between the National Institute of Standards in Egypt (NIS) and Department of Research And Development, Medical Engineering Group (MEG) Company. The most parameters required to characterize the performance of radiometer are the responsivity and uniformity. Then the present radiometer has been compared to other two available portable phototherapy radiometers in irradiance levels measurement. The calibration has been settled and the expanded uncertainties has been calculated according to the Guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement (GUM) at coverage factor <em>k</em> = 2. The designed radiometer has responsivity range 415-495 nm with FWHM 35 nm which covers the phototherapy blue band. The radiometer results output summarized as; quantum efficiency is 84%, the uniformity 72% and measuring irradiance range 100-2500 µW.cm^-2.