The dynamic range of a spectrometer is a measure of the intensity resolution of a spectrometer. In essence, it is the maximum signal before saturation over the minimum signal, where the minimum signal is a signal equal to the baseline noise (S/N = 1). However, the baseline noise depends on the exposure time. It is useful to consider two different figures: the dynamic range of a single acquisition and the dynamic range of the system. These are defined as follows:
where Smax is the signal just before saturation, Ni is the baseline noise, and ti is the exposure time.
