Focal plane cameras

The focal plane camera (FPC), still in initial development, consists of an array of 31 Faraday cups, each 145 pm wide. Up to 15 m/z values can be measured simultaneously. This detector shows improved precision compared with single channel detectors and has the ability to measure fast transient signals such as those from laser ablation. The detector design is described in the references by Barnes et al. and Knight et al. cited in the bibliography. 

Denton M. B., Barinaga C. (., Koppenaal D., Yound E. T. and Hieetje G. M. (2002) Characterization of a focal plane camera fitted to a Mattauch-Herzog geometry mass spectrograph. 1. Use with a glow-discharge source, Anal. Chem. 74 5327-5332. 

The sample is placed horizontally on a two-axis transport mechanism at a predefined focal plane. A cooled CCD camera scans an area previously defined by the user and takes multiple adjacent frames covering that area. These frames are combined in the computer into one single high-resolution image. 

Unlike mapping, the detector used for infrared chemical imaging is a two-dimensional detector array. The infrared focal-plane array (FPA) detector, the long-wavelength analog of a typical digital camera, was... 

The infrared radiation caused by the heat of reaction of an enantioselective enzyme-catalyzed transformation can be detected by modern photovoltaic infrared (IT)-thermographic cameras equipped with focal-plane array detectors. Specifically, in the lipase-catalyzed enantioselective acylation of racemic 1-phenylethanol (20), the (K)- and (S)-substrates were allowed to react separately in the wells of microtiter plates, the (7 )-alcohol showing hot spots in the IR-thermographic images (113,114). Thus, enantioselective enzymes can be identified in kinetic resolution. However, quantification has not been achieved thus far by this method, which means that only those mutants can be identified which have E values larger than 100 (113-115). 

Light microscopy of immunoperoxidase-stained sections was done on Axiovert S100 microscope (Carl Zeiss, Tokyo, Japan) and digitized by a 3-CCD (charge-coupled device) digital camera (Fujifilm, Tokyo, Japan) on a personal computer (Fujitsu, Tokyo, Japan). Only cells in a single focal plane were counted on a computer screen to avoid oversampling. 

The ideal high-throughput analytical technique would be efficient in terms of required resources and would be scalable to accommodate an arbitrarily large number of samples. In addition, this scalability would be such that the dependence of the cost of the equipment to perform the experiments would scale in a less than linear manner as a function of the number of samples that could be studied. The only way to accomplish this is to have one or more aspects of the experimental setup utilize an array-based approach. Array detectors are massively multiplexed versions of single-element detectors composed of a rectangular grid of small detectors. The most commonly encountered examples are CCD cameras, which are used to acquire ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared (IR) photons in a parallel manner. Other examples include IR focal plane arrays (FPAs) for the collection of IR photons and channel electron multipliers for the collection of electrons. 

Passive FPAs are perhaps the most familiar imaging system architecture because this architecture is used for most optical and IR cameras. In this configuration, an array of small detectors is placed at the focal plane of a lens or reflector system. The received energy in this case is derived from thermal (black-body) emission or reflected radiation from the scene. Thermal emission near room temperature peaks in the long-wave IR... 

The results obtained with this first generation focal plane M.S.-EOID system as well as studies by Beynon and others at Purdue University (15) demonstrated the technical feasibility of such a system. Furthermore, these studies led the way to solutions for the variety of fundamental problems, which were encountered during the development and helped point out the directions towards future changes necessary on the road towards a commercially practical design for use of the concept in routine applications of mass-spectrometry. It became obvious that the vidicon based camera system wets not the best approach. Some of the reasons for this are (1) Loss of sensitivity due to light losses in the dissector and the transfer optics (2) cost of the image dissector (3) lower dynamic range and sensitivity, slower read-out rate, etc., of the vidicon compared to alternate devices. 

Figure 8. Number of fibers counted in the camera s focal plane 2.5 cm below the furnace centerline after a number of standard growth experiments where the hydrogen jacket pressure was held constant at the values shown. Bottom curve refers to a series of 304 tubes. In the top curve 304 tubes which had previously grown fibers and whose surfaces were treated with Fe(NO ) were used.

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