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Wavelengths in IR sensing: SWIR, MWIR, LWIR and why 1550 nm matters
Infrared (IR) light lies just beyond the red end of the visible spectrum, starting at about 700 nanometres (nm) and extending out to roughly 1 millimetre (mm). In practice, most sensing applications focus on a smaller portion of this range, typically from about 0.7 to 15 micrometres (µm). (One micrometre equals 1000 nanometres.)
Within this region, engineers commonly divide infrared into bands such as short-wave infrared (SWIR), mid-wave infrared (MWIR), and long-wave infrared (LWIR). Typical ranges are: SWIR: about 0.9–1.7 µm (sometimes extended to around 2.5 µm) MWIR: about 3–5 µm LWIR: about 8–14 µm …
