Instrument architecture

No commercial electron magnetic resonance spectrometer presently operates continuously over one or more frequency octaves, but instead utilizes a narrow band source that is mechanically or electrically tunable over a 500-MHz range. Despite past arguments against their use, wideband solid-state devices perform competitively with traditional narrow band devices, and numerous synthesized frequency sources are continuously tunable from 2-26 GHz. The phase noise, rated at <-80 dBc at 10 kHz offset for many systems, is excellent, and comparable to narrow band reflex klystrons. Similarly, many components can be made broadband or at least octave spanning, and therefore the experimental capability is available. One approach that is economical relies on the VXIbus instrumentation architecture, which enables one to assemble a modular instrument on a common computer-controlled mainframe that allows experimental flexibility, and further details of a broadband EMR instrument may be found in Volume 21 of this series (Bender, 2004). 

In practice this simple nulling approach lacks precision, and a number of variants of the instrument architecture and operation have been derived, such as that shown in Figure 18-1 (a). Here the quarter-wave plate (or compensator) is placed in the incident beam, and is kept at a fixed position, with the analyzer and an initial input beam polarizer being... 

Hardware problems as the instruments have rather poor processors and custom architecture, it is difficult to test new configurations and, once the new configuration is selected, it is often necessary to strongly modify the hardware in order to adapt the existing instruments. 

The new instrument Harmonie 2000 features additional advantages which are specifically linked to the digital architecture. 

In non-destructive testing, there are almost as many procedures, needs or uses as users it is therefore important to be able to quickly modify the instrument in order to answer a new request. This new architecture is meant for such operations. 

Time Systems, McGraw-HiU, New York, 1985 Hawryszldewycs, Database Analysis and Design, Science Research Associates Inc., Chicago, 1984 Kham-hata, Microprocessois/Microcomputers Architecture, Software, and Systems, 2d ed.. Whey, New York, 1987 Liptak, Instrument Engineers Handbook, Chilton Book Company, Philadelphia, 1995 Melhchamp (ed.), Real-Time Computing with Applications to Data Acquisition and Control, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1983. 

Most AR coatings are still produced by evaporation but CVD is gradually introduced particularly in applications with three-dimensional surfaces or deep recesses. AR coatings are used in numerous applications, which include lasers, lenses for cameras and binoculars, instrument panels, microscopes, telescopes, range finders, etc., as well as on automotive and architectural glasses. 

Thurston CG. LIMS/instrument integration computing architecture for improved automation and flexibility. Am Lab 2004 Sep. 15-19. 

Kodak is commercialising its low molecular weight OLEDs for use in both passive and active matrix display architectures. It has also licensed its technology to Pioneer Corp who have commercialised passive matrix displays for car radios and cellular phone displays. TDK has displays for cellular phones, personal digital assistants and car instrumentation clusters. Perhaps the most significant collaboration to date has been with Sanyo. Sanyo s capabilities in low-temperature polycrystalline silicon have been married with Kodak s low MW materials to produce a full colour, 5 inch active matrix display, commercialisation of which was expected in 2001. 

The trend towards more online applications will surely continue for the next few years. If the proper online instrumentation is not available, existing laboratory instrumentation will be converted to do the job. Open-architecture instrumentation will become necessary, enabling systems to be connected remotely to a central chromatographic information-management system that will handle all the real-time data acquisition, control, and troubleshooting. 

Instrumentation advances have increased the power and quality of the fundamental analytical techniques used in conjunction with LIMS. Unfortunately, these advances come at a price of increasing complexity and volume of information. Despite all of the architectural and technological advances of computer hardware and software, the demands of the information requirements still exceed the computing capabilities, so as to put continuing pressure on computer manufacturers to increase storage and processing capabilities even further. 

Using the renewable separation-column approach, TRU-Resin can be used to conduct Am-Pu separations without the need to elute the remaining actinides off the resin.83 Instead, the resin could simply be replaced prior to the next sample. In addition, it was shown that TRU-Resin could be automatically loaded into a separation column as part of an open-architecture radiochemical separation workstation, where the instrument would load the desired separation material, and then select reagents appropriate to the separation desired, all under computer control according to the operator s needs for the sample at hand.83... 

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