Thorlabs PM100USB Power and Energy Meter Interface with USB Operation

Overview

The Thorlabs PM100USB is a small, display-free power and energy meter interface that connects a Thorlabs C-Series optical sensor directly to a computer over USB. Instead of carrying its own screen, the unit hands the readout to a Windows PC, laptop or tablet running the Optical Power Monitor application, where measurements appear as a numerical value, tuning needle, bar graph, trend chart, statistics panel or histogram. This makes it a cost-effective way to add calibrated optical power and pulse energy measurement to an automated test station, an optical bench or a production fixture where a computer is already in place.

Seven Star LLC supplies the Thorlabs PM100USB to laboratories, universities, telecom operators and industrial users across the Sultanate of Oman and the wider GCC. Buyers in Muscat, Sohar, Salalah and Duqm get engineering support in Muscat, help with choosing the right sensor head for each wavelength and power level, and a single point of contact for the rest of the Thorlabs photonics range.

Operating Principle

The Thorlabs PM100USB accepts three classes of detector through one DE-9 sensor socket. Photodiode sensors deliver a photocurrent that the meter converts across six decade ranges from 50 nA to 5 mA; thermopile sensors deliver a small voltage across four ranges from 1 mV to 1 V; and pyroelectric energy sensors deliver a voltage pulse of up to 100 V that is captured against an adjustable trigger threshold. Each channel feeds a 16-bit analog-to-digital converter, and the firmware applies the sensor responsivity at the selected wavelength so the result is reported directly in watts, dBm, W/cm², joules or J/cm².

Every C-Series sensor stores its type and calibration data in non-volatile memory inside the red connector housing. When a sensor is plugged in, that data is read automatically and the Thorlabs PM100USB is ready in roughly two seconds, so heads can be hot-swapped without manual configuration. A thermistor channel also reads sensor temperature between −10 °C and +80 °C, which matters for thermal heads whose response depends on their own temperature.

Engineering Design of the Thorlabs PM100USB

The Thorlabs PM100USB is built into a ribbed red aluminium housing with rubber end caps, measuring about 93.1 × 60.4 × 28.7 mm and weighing roughly 0.15 kg. One end carries the mini-USB socket and two status LEDs (USB link and sensor detected); the sensor DE-9 connector sits on the opposite side. The unit is powered entirely from the 5 V USB bus, so no separate supply, battery or charger is needed, which simplifies installation inside test racks and enclosed optical setups.

For integration work, the meter enumerates as a USB 2.0 instrument and supports SCPI commands through the USBTMC protocol. Engineers can drive it from the Thorlabs TLPM driver or the legacy NI-VISA driver, which allows it to be scripted from LabVIEW, C, C#, Python or MATLAB environments. Measurement speed reaches up to 300 samples per second depending on the host computer and settings, and the analog input bandwidth extends to 100 kHz for photodiode heads. A documented pin-out of the Thorlabs PM100USB also lets advanced users connect a custom photodiode, thermopile or pyroelectric detector to the same input.

Key Features

The main reasons engineers choose the Thorlabs PM100USB for PC-based measurement are summarised below.

• It works with Thorlabs S1xxC photodiode sensors, S3xxC and S4xxC thermal sensors, and ES/EC pyroelectric energy sensors through a single input.
• Automatic sensor recognition loads calibration data from the connector memory, so changing heads takes seconds.
• Six photocurrent ranges from 50 nA to 5 mA give a measurement uncertainty of ±0.2% of full scale from 5 µA to 5 mA.
• Thermopile ranges from 1 mV to 1 V hold ±0.5% of full scale from 10 mV upward, suiting higher-power continuous-wave lasers.
• On the Thorlabs PM100USB, the pyroelectric input up to 100 V with a trigger threshold adjustable from 0.1% to 99.9% of full scale captures single pulses and pulse trains.
• USB bus power and a pocket-sized housing remove the need for an external power supply or batteries.
• SCPI command support over USBTMC allows automated test scripts and integration with existing instrument control software.
• The Optical Power Monitor software provides trend charts, statistics and histograms for alignment and long-term stability studies.

Industrial Applications

In the Gulf region, the Thorlabs PM100USB is a practical choice wherever optical power must be logged rather than simply read by eye. Fibre-optic network contractors and telecom operators in Oman use it on the bench to verify transmitter output and patch-cord losses during acceptance testing, while university photonics and physics laboratories in Muscat embed it in student experiments where a shared laptop already acts as the display. Laser materials-processing workshops in the Sohar and Salalah free zones use it to confirm delivered beam power before cutting, welding or marking runs, and to record the value for quality documentation.

Oil and gas, power and water utilities increasingly rely on laser-based gas analysers, fibre-optic temperature sensing and optical level and flow instruments. Maintenance teams supporting that equipment can pair the Thorlabs PM100USB with a suitable sensor head to check source output during calibration visits, then archive the readings with the job record. Because the same interface reads photodiode, thermal and pyroelectric sensors, one unit can cover visible alignment lasers, infrared telecom sources and pulsed lasers simply by swapping the head. Seven Star LLC supplies the Thorlabs PM100USB alongside matching sensors and accessories, with engineering support in Muscat for customers across the GCC.

Technical Specifications

The table below lists the principal Thorlabs PM100USB data from the manufacturer’s operation manual; technical data are valid at 23 ± 5 °C and 45 ± 15% relative humidity.

Compatible Thorlabs Instruments

Teams that also need a stand-alone display, or a laser source to characterise, can look at the Thorlabs PM100D handheld console, Thorlabs PM400 touchscreen console and Thorlabs CLD1015 compact laser diode driver.

How to Order

To order the Thorlabs PM100USB, send a formal RFQ to Seven Star LLC with the sensor heads, wavelength range and quantity you need, and our instrumentation team will confirm availability and lead times for delivery across Oman and the GCC. The operation manual is available for download on this page, and our engineers in Muscat can help match the right photodiode, thermal or pyroelectric sensor to your application before you commit to a purchase.