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mw to dBm Conversion Calculator

dbm on dbmW is a unit of level used to indicate that a power level is expressed in decibels with reference to one milliwatt.

Optical power has a vast range of practical values, easily ranging from the output power of an EDFA in watts (W), all the way down to the Rayleigh backscatter level of single-mode fiber in femtoWatts (fW). This represents a difference of 15 orders of magnitude!

If you are measuring an EDFA or any other optical power between 1W and 10pW, please check out or new optical powermeter the OPM-200. On the other hand, if you need to measure the fiber backscatter, check our new OFDR system, the SPA-100.

In order to work with such a wide range of values, optical power is often represented on logarithmic scale as dBm. dBm is a logarithmic scale that expressed optical power relative to 1 milliwatt (1 mW) as a reference point.

power conversion

mw to dBm Conversion Calculator

Enter power in milliwatts or decibel-milliwatts for the calculator conversion.

mW
dBm

To convert milliwatts (mW) to decibels-milliwatts (dBm), you can use the following formula:

\[P_{dBm}=10log_{10}\left({P_{mW}\over 1mW}\right)\]

To convert decibels-milliwatts (dBm) to milliwatts (mW), you can use the following formula:

\[P_{mW}=1mW \times 10^{P_{dBm} \over 10}\]

In order to work with such a wide range of values, optical power is often represented on logarithmic scale as dBm. dBm is a logarithmic scale that expresses optical power relative to 1 milliwatt (1 mW) as a reference point.