UV Sensor - What Wavelength Will it Measure?

Other Hardware Sensors
1

I'm looking at putting together a device to test a material's ability to block UV light, using an Arduino Uno and a SparkFun ML8511 Sensor.

The product page says that the sensor is best at registering 280-390nm wavelengths. A graph that shows the output voltage at different UV intensities can be found on the hookup guide. The graph shows the UV intensity at a 365nm wavelength. Does this mean it will only measure one wavelength at a time? Or can it measure all through 280-390nm at once?

2

The sensor responds to all wavelengths of light from UVA and B to visible red. However, it is most sensitive to light in the range 280-390 nm, which is in the tanning or burning region.

The response of the sensor is summed over all the incoming wavelengths, weighted by the response curve in the data sheet:

response.gif

If you are interested in measuring a given wavelength range, you will need to add a narrow band optical filter in front of the sensor and those can be quite expensive.