Terms Associated with the Emission and Receipt of Electromagnetic Radiation

Terms Associated with the Emission and Receipt of Electromagnetic Radiation 

The various terms that are used for the description of the emission of electromagnetic radiation from a radiant source or for the receipt of electromagnetic radiation by a specified surface element are summarized in Tab. 3-9. The terminology of electromagnetic radiation measurement is divided into radiometry and the subset of photometry (Fig. 3-18). The former is the science that involves the energy measurement of electromagnetic radiation in general. The latter is applied for the same purpose when visible radiation is to be described or measured in relation to the human eye s response. Important photometric quantities are for example luminous flux, luminous intensity, illuminance and luminance (McCluney, 1994). Every photometric quantity has its counterpart in radiometry, and vice versa. 

Radiometric quantities are important to describe and measure UV and VUV radiation. They are usually subdivided into energetic, spectral and photonic terms. Energetic terms (Tab. 3-9) are based on the energy of the radiation and they refer to all relevant wavelengths. Eor each of these terms a spectral derivative can be defined (Bolton, 1999) which is correlated with a specific wavelength X. Eor example, the extraterrestrial solar spectrum incident on the upper atmosphere is represented by the mean spectral irradiance Eq in W m nm over a defined wavelength interval AX in nm (CIE, 1989). Further, each of the spectral units can easily be transferred to photon-based units, which themselves are related to radio-metric units (cf Braun et al., 1991). 

Name of quantity Symbol Definition SI unit Classification  

Radiant power, radiant (energy) flux P, 5 P= l) = ) s , W receipt, emission 

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