Sunlight and typical
electric lamps have several orders of magnitude more
visible than UV-B radiation (280-320 nm). This makes
measuring UV-B radiation challenging because trace
amounts of visible radiation can be internally reflected
to the UV-B detectors. This contamination of the UV
detectors by visible radiation is called stray light.
The spectroradiometer has baffles to minimize internal
reflection but it still has about 0.1% stray light,
which can significantly affect measurement of UV-B
radiation in sunlight. In applications without
significant visible radiation, such as germicidal lamps
or black lights, the stray light is not a factor. UV-A
(320-400 nm) radiation is a relatively large fraction of
sunlight (8.5%) so UV-A measurements are minimally
affected by stray light. However, UV-B radiation is only
about 0.3% of the visible radiation on a clear day near
noon. UV-B measurements in sunlight, therefore, are
affected up to 33% by stray light, so the following
procedure should be used to improve the accuracy of UV-B
measurements in sunlight or electric lamps.