Light-chopper frequency

All spectral elements are recorded simultaneously by the array detector, i. e. the measuring time with the shutter in its open position is very short The short illumination time permits the sample and reference positions to be positioned immediately after the light source. Multi-channel spectrometers may also be constructed as double beam instruments. For special measurements, e. g. rapid kinetic investigations, when the chopper frequency is too low with respect to the rate of... 

Fig. 19 Applicatirai of the NF-HDG method [11] to a microchip, (a) A pump light beam is incident on a grating, and the liquid in the microchannel is excited by a grating pattern of the pump light, (b) A probe light beam is incident and diffracted by both the transmission grating and thermal grating in the microchannel. (c) When the fluid is in motion, the heterodyne signal intensity is changed by change in the phase relation between the reference and the signal, (d) Calibration curves of flow rate measured in the microtube at the chopper frequency 602 Hz...

The basic experimental arrangements for photocurrent measurements under periodic square and sinusoidal light perturbation are schematically depicted in Fig. 19. In the previous section, we have already discussed experimental results based on chopped light and lock-in detection. This approach is particularly useful for measurement at a single frequency, generally above 5 Hz. At lower frequencies the performance of lock-in amplifier and mechanical choppers diminishes considerably. For rather slow dynamics, DC photocurrent transients employing optical shutters are more advisable. On the other hand, for kinetic studies of the various reaction steps under illumination, intensity modulated photocurrent spectroscopy (IMPS) has proved to be a very powerful approach [132,133,148-156]. For IMPS, the applied potential is kept constant and the light intensity is sinusoid-... 

Frequently a modulation of light is introduced to the system in order to increase the signal to noise ratio. Flash lamps by their construction give pulses of light with repetition, which can be controlled by the user. Other lamps cannot be modulated through their driving current because the emitted radiation would be unstable over time. In this case, the application of an external modulator, e.g. a mechanical chopper, is the only solution. In both cases, the frequency of modulation is rather low - up to kilohertz. 

For example, the light emitted by a faint source may be chopped by means of a chopper producing a square wave-shaped light signal on an optical detector (see Fig. 10.8). Other spurious optical signals which are not modulated at the frequency of the chopper, as we... 

The IR light source is placed in a parabolic mirror in order to concentrate and focus the IR light inside the measurement cell. The chopper wheel, rotating with a well-defined frequency, will modulate the light, generating light-pulses which... 

In this system the optical filters are combined to form the optical window through which the IR light enters the cell. Passing the chopper wheel modulates the light, but this chopper wheel is perforated at different distances from the center. When rotating the chopper wheel at constant velocity, three different modulation frequencies are obtained-corresponding to the three optical filters. A microphone picks up the photo-acoustic signal downstream. 

The prism at the outlet of the laser serves to separate the laser emission of the gas fluorescence and allows for a clean excitation of the sample. For excitation using solid-state lasers, this element is dispensable. The lens (element 5) collects the fluorescent signal and focuses on the aperture of the monochromator. The filter is used to eliminate excitation that is spread over the surface of the sample. The optical chopper serves to modulate the light at a defined frequency, which serves as reference for the lock-in amplifier. A data acquisition system controls the pace of the monochromator and reads the signal of the lock-in, generating the sample s emission spectrum. 

When Walsh started to think about using AAS for analytical purposes back in 1952, one of his key conclusions was that, in order to carry out absorption measurements on luminous atomic vapors, it would be necessary to employ a modulated light source and a synchronously tuned detection system, so that any radiation emitted by the sample would produce no signal at the output of the detection system [2]. This modulation principle, using either an AC-operated radiation source or a chopper in the radiation beam, and a selective amplifier tuned to the same modulation frequency, has ever since been applied in all commercially available atomic absorption spectrometers. It has been considered one of the major advantages of... 

Simultaneous with the publication of Hocker et al., there appeared the results of Yardley and Moore [142] on laser-excited vibrational fluorescence in CH4. A mechanically chopped He-Ne 3.39-micron laser [143, 144] was used to excite the asymmetric stretching [/ = 2948 cm-1 (36.55 X 10-2 eV)] vibration, i>3 (see Figure 3.17). The optical arrangement is shown in Figure 3.18. The He-Ne laser tube, 220 cm in length, is shown on the left. Mx, M2, and Ms are mirrors Bx and B2 are baffles to eliminate stray light Lx and L2 are lenses which focus the laser output into a collimated beam having a diameter of 2 mm, and thence, into a Pyrex fluorescence cell. At the focal point between Li and L2 is a chopper wheel, to produce a nearly perfect square wave modulated at frequencies between 600 and 10,000 Hz. An audio oscillator and a 60-W amplifier are used to drive the synchronous chopper motor. An InSb infrared detector (response time of about 4 nsec) is used to... 

Figure 9.14. Brillouin spectrometer using fibre optics to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. (1) Light source consisting of a master laser (1a) a slave with matched frequency (1b) and control unit (1c) for sensitive stabilization of the difference frequency Sv. (2) Signal splitter. (3) Fibre coupler. (4) Polarizer. (5) Chopper. (6) Lens. (7) Cuvette placed on a goniometer. (8) Termination. (9) Slit. (10) Broad-band (10 GHz) APD. (11) Photodiode with a smaller bandwidth (1 GHz). (12) Spectrum analyser (10 GHz) for controlling the intermediate frequency Sv. (13) Spectrum analyser (1 GHz) for the measurement of the half-power bandwidth, Av, of the Brillouin peak. (14) Amplifier system. (15) Process control computer. (Reproduced with permission of Elsevier, Ref [96].)...

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