Roy Sanders

 
Primary Light Standards for Canada [and the World]
With Owen C Jones and a team of technicians,* I was responsible for developing the light standards for Canada using the primary standard of light at the freezing point of platinum.

I also worked with an international group of scientists to try to improved the agreement with national labs around the world about the world's standards of light. When we had meetings in Paris at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, the director wanted me to see whether the agreement between national labs could be improved. To do this, I visited a number of national labs to determine how they set their standards.

See CIE Interlaboratory Comparison of Measurements of Photocell Spectral Sensitivity
by W. Budde and C. L. Sanders, Applied Optics, Vol. 12, Issue 9, pp. 2099-2107 (1973)
 

Spectroradiometry
In the early 1960s, I designed and built a spectroradiometer** to measure the spectral distribution of light sources. There was a long spiral groove with set-screws which as the spiral turned, measurement was taken where ever there was a set-screw. This meant that by putting the set screws closer together, one could get measurements that were close together in the spectrum thereby determining the spectral distribution of the light source. It could also be used to determine where the peaks in the power distribution in the light sources were. Because the spectroradiometer was sensitive to temperature, it was housed in a large box so that the temperature could be controlled.

Another purpose of the spectroradiometer was to determine the "red shift" in the spectrum being measured which was useful for cosmologists. Because of this, NASA made of copy of my instrument because they were interested in "red shift". They used it to determine how fast a source seemed to be moving away from an observer.

See A High-Precision Photoelectric Photometer
By O. C. Jones and C. L. Sanders, Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol. 51, Issue 1, pp. 105-108 (1961)

A Versatile Spectroradiometer and Its Applications
by C. L. Sanders and W. Gaw, Applied Optics, Vol. 6, Issue 10, pp. 1639-1647 (1967)

Source: Roy Sanders Facebook page "Work and Education"

Notes:
* Read the memories of Graham Fielder, one of Roy's technicians, who described his role in this project. Physicist Owen Jones, who worked with Roy at NRC before returning to Britain, was also a family friend.  He purchased a cottage lot on Lac Pemichangan next door to the Sanders' neighbours, Norm and Katherine Hefler (see memories of John Hefler). Owen went by train to Montreal with Roy's son Richard to see Expo 67.

** Read Alan Robertson's memories of this spectroradiometer which Roy designed and built.