I have been investigating different options for NIR light sources, such as Tungsten, Tungsten-Halogen (or Quartz Tungsten-Halogen [QTH]), Mercury, and Xenon lamps (continuous and "flash"/pulsed modes). Moreover, there are some narrowband NIR LEDs that can be employed in some applications and I particularly did some tests with such LEDs.
However, I was not able to find a detailed study comparing such optical sources or even expanding the above options list. Clearly, many of these options of light sources seem to be targeting medical applications (e.g., endoscopic instruments), UV applications, and optical microscopy. Therefore, even if the wavelength range reaches NIR, a significant part of the effective optical power of the light source goes to VIS or UV regions which represents a significant disadvantage for the development of energy-efficient NIR devices.
This page is nice source of information regarding selecting the proper lamp for your application, including figures with the spectral responses of different light sources. However, the article does not specifically target NIR applications:
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/A_Guide_to_Selecting_Lamps/a44487
In this another excellent source of information, the manufacturer provides the Spectral Irradiance Data for the light sources they sell:
https://www.newport.com/medias/sys_master/images/images/hfb/hdf/8797196451870/Light-Sources.pdf
But, again, the document does not provide a deeper discussion targeting NIR applications + energy-efficiency.
Any suggestions ?
You may be missing an important point here, the radiant heat from a black body at temperatures in the 300 to 500 degrees Celsius range would be an excellent NIR light source, provided you carefully avoid visible light contamination. Futher, its spectral power content can be read off directly from the well-known black body radiator curve.
David Oulton Thank you for the suggestion, that's a good point.
Do you know about any experiment/paper in this specific topic (e.g., engineering of "efficient" black body radiators targeting NIR range), including materials or metamaterials for the realization of such radiators?
I would like to cross-compare this technique with the use of QTH sources that I already consider as a baseline: not very close to the ideal, but QTH lamps do the job with a relatively smaller cost than other options (small lifetime is still an issue for QTH lamps).
thanks for your contribution, what experience have you for NIR light with combined Mo S2 molybdenum disulfide in pancreatic cancer treatment
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