Linearity and nonlinearity of silicon photodiodes for accurate absolute optical flux measurements: a review

The accurate evaluation of linearity for an Si photodiode (PD) with respect to the incident optical flux is of great importance to determine a highly accurate range for the absolute optical flux that is more than six orders of magnitude. As such, various evaluation methods of linearity and nonlinearity have been proposed, and their feasibilities have been demonstrated. These methods can cover the flux range more than six orders of magnitude and the wavelength regions from ultraviolet to near-infrared, which are comprised in an Si PD. This paper describes previous accurate nonlinearity evaluation systems, experimentally measured nonlinearity results and their numerical analyses. The findings of this study could contribute to the accurate absolute optical flux measurements by using Si PDs.