How to Measure Power Power Measurement
Agilent 8163A Lightwave Multimeter, Agilent 8164A Lightwave Measurement System, & Agilent 8166A Lightwave
Multichannel System, Fourth Edition
85
channel 2, is the same as that for the master channel, channel 1. See Table 2 on
page 90 for more details.
MinMax mode measures the incoming power and displays the minimum value
measured, [Pmin], and the maximum value measured, [Pmax]. The difference
between these values,
∆P, is displayed in place of P, the power value. This mode is
intended principally for polarization dependent measurements, but can be used
for other types of measurement.
You can choose three modes of operation from the MinMax mode menu:
• <Continuous> mode, which compares each new measured value with the
maximum and minimum values so far, and replaces them as necessary.
This mode is useful for measuring the Polarization Dependent Loss (PDL) of a
component. Run the application while sweeping the polarization of the source
applied to the component.
• <Window> mode, which compares each new measured value with the
maximum and minimum values of each of the previous N samples. When a
new measurement is taken it is added to a buffer containing the previous N
samples and the oldest measurement is deleted.
• <Refresh> mode, which adds each new measurement to a buffer. The
minimum and maximum values, in this buffer, are displayed. After N samples
are added to the buffer, the buffer resets and a new buffer is created.
You can use Window and Refresh modes, for example, when you are
searching for or setting the position of minimum PDL.
To choose the <Refresh> MinMax mode:
1 Move to the Power Meter channel and press the [Details] softkey.
Figure 54 The Window and Refresh Modes
Window
Refresh
N Samples
N Samples
Time for display to update
Time for display to update
The length of the lines
displayed represents the
size of the buffer at the
time of update
Mode
Mode
To Next Page
Loading...
