Optical power meter using radiation pressure measurement

Abstract This paper describes a radiation pressure meter based on a diamagnetic spring. We take advantage of the diamagnetic property of pyrolytic carbon to make an elementary levitated system. It is equivalent to a torsional spring-mass-damper system consisting of a small pyrolytic carbon disc levitated above a permanent magnet array. There are several possible measurement modes. In this paper, only the angular response to an optical power single-step is described. An optical detection composed of a laser diode, a mirror and a position sensitive detector (PSD) allow measurement of the angular deflection proportional to the voltage delivered by the PSD. Once the parameters of the levitated system depending on its geometrical and physical characteristics have been determined regardless of any optical power, by applying a simple physical law, one can deduce the value of the optical power to be measured from the measurement of the first maximum of the output voltage amplitude.