The world's first double beam FTIR spectrophotometer for on line and conventional infra red and Raman spectroscopy has been launched by Spectrolab
Double beam FTIR spectrophotometer The world's first double beam FTIR spectrophotometer for on line and conventional infra red and Raman spectroscopy has been launched by Spectrolab Spectrolab announces what it describes as a remarkable new development in Fourier transform infrared technology by confirming the development of the world's first truly double beam optically ratioing Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer (DBFTIR).
This unique patented technology has been jointly developed by Spectrolab and Anaspec and is set to revolutionise many important applications in the field of analytical spectroscopy for both process and research applications Many companies around the world have invested considerable time and funds trying to develop double beam capabilities for FTIR instruments in that the technology offers the only real possibility to improve system accuracy and dynamic range.
So far this work has been without success.
The success of the Spectrolab / Anaspec programme will therefore allow the company to offer the newly patented optical designs to other instrument companies for use under licence.
Double beam optical geometry has been used for many years in the field of UV/vis spectrophotometry as well as many other analytical techniques, often with tremendous advantage.
This is because double beam optics allow comparative measurements to be made on more than one sample simultaneously and at the same time provide complete compensation for short and long term drift.
Double Beam FTIR, NIR and Raman technology allows similar measurements to be made but with greatly improved overall dynamic range.
For process applications it will become possible to directly measure the difference between two samples in real time allowing constant comparisons to be made without the need to take reference measurements and so allowing the manufacture of many natural and synthetic products to be made with better quality.
In Raman it will be possible to automatically subtract the excitation frequency and other spectral components in real time allowing simpler analysis to be made with improved dynamic range.
Even such technologies as fibre optic communications will benefit in that DBFT will allow very small optical signals to be measured in very noisy backgrounds.
Interest has already been received for using DBFTIR in a portable medical screening system for detecting diabetes, some cancers and in dermatological applications.
DBFTIR systems will shortly be available for both air path and vacuum applications with nominal resolutions down to 0.1cm-1
