Construction and Calibration of a Streaked Optical Spectrometer for Shock Temperature

TL;DR

This paper details the design, calibration, and performance benchmarking of a streaked optical spectrometer used for temporally and spectrally-resolved measurements of shock-compressed materials in high-pressure experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a calibrated streaked optical spectrometer system for shock temperature measurements with flexible fiber optic coupling and provides calibration procedures and performance benchmarks.

Findings

Successful calibration for absolute temperature measurement

Flexible fiber optic coupling enables versatile experimental setups

Benchmark results demonstrate system accuracy and reliability

Abstract

Here we describe the implementation and calibration of a streaked visible spectrometer (SVS) for optical pyrometry and emission/absorption spectroscopy on light gas gun platforms in the UC Davis Shock Compression Laboratory. The diagnostic consists of an optical streak camera coupled to a spectrometer to provide temporally and spectrally-resolved records of visible emission from dynamically-compressed materials. Fiber optic coupling to the sample enables a small diagnostic footprint on the target face and flexibility of operation on multiple launch systems without the need for open optics. We present the details of calibration (time, wavelength and spectral radiance) for absolute temperature determination and present benchmark measurements of system performance.