Modulated techniques

RAIRS is a non-destructive infrared technique with special versatility - it does not require the vacuum conditions essential for electron spectroscopic methods and is, therefore, in principle, applicable to the study of growth processes [4.270]. By use of a polarization modulation technique surfaces in a gas phase can be investigated. Higher surface sensitivity is achieved by modulation of the polarization between s and p. This method can also be used to discriminate between anisotropic near-sur-face absorption and isotropic absorption in the gas phase [4.271]. 

AFM through force or displacement modulation techniques. Numerous methods have evolved that take advantage of the greater sensitivity modulation techniques provide, allowing dissipative processes to be examined. However, evaluation of the probe/sample response requires care with test protocols and instrument calibration, as well as application of appropriate contact mechanics models only a few of these techniques have evolved into quantitative methods. 

Asif, S.A.S., Colton, R.J. and Wahl, K.J., Nanoscale surface mechanical property measurements Force modulation techniques applied to nanoindentation. In Ovemey, R.M. and Frommer, J.E. (Eds.), Interfacial Properties on the Submicron Scale. ACS/Oxford Press, Oxford, 2001. 

Recent work in our laboratory has shown that Fourier Transform Infrared Reflection Absorption Spectroscopy (FT-IRRAS) can be used routinely to measure vibrational spectra of a monolayer on a low area metal surface. To achieve sensitivity and resolution, a pseudo-double beam, polarization modulation technique was integrated into the FT-IR experiment. We have shown applicability of FT-IRRAS to spectral measurements of surface adsorbates in the presence of a surrounding infrared absorbing gas or liquid as well as measurements in the UHV. We now show progress toward situ measurement of thermal and hydration induced conformational changes of adsorbate structure. The design of the cell and some preliminary measurements will be discussed. 

The surface actlve/surface inactive difference between p-polarlsed/ s-polarised radiation has enabled an alternative modulation technique, polarisation modulation, to be developed (15,16). In electrochemical applications, it allows surface specificity to be achieved whilst working at fixed potential and without electrochemical modulation of the interface. It can be implemented either on EMIRS or on SNIFTIRS spectrometers and can be very valuable in dealing with electrochemically irreversible systems however, the achievable sensitivity falls well short of that obtained with electrochemical modulation. It should also be noted that its "surface specificity" is not truly surface but extends out into the electrolyte with decreasing specificity to about half a wavelength. 

For all these reasons, commercial instruments, based on the classical P + PD + PI control (see for example ref. [8]), are of little utility except for r>lK. Their heater control methods sometimes employ pulse width modulation techniques of a square wave. Thus, they introduce vast amounts of noise to sensitive regions of the experiment. 

The measurement of the Stark effect were carried out with the electric-field modulation technique at room temp, in vacuo (about 10 3 torr). A sinusoidal ac voltage (500 Hz) was applied between the A1 electrodes. Then, the change in transmittance induced by the applied electric field were measured with a phase-sensitive detector (NF Electronic Instruments LI-575A) at the fundamental frequency. 

Figure lb. Schematic diagram of polarized light used with the polarization modulation technique. (Reproduced with permission from Ref. 9. Copyright 1984 Elsevier.)... 

In powder samples with broad EPR lines, large Zeeman modulation amplitudes have to be applied to improve the sensitivity. Such amplitudes often produce microphonic noise in the cavity and cause an uncertainty in the orientation selection in single crystal-like ENDOR spectra (Sect. 4.1). A modulation technique which avoids these problems in powder ENDOR studies has been proposed by Hyde et al.32). In this scheme the Zeeman modulation is replaced by a 180° modulation of the phase of the microwave signal. 

The applicability of the ESE envelope modulation technique has been extended by two recent publications115,1161. Merks and de Beer1151 introduced a two-dimensional Fourier transform technique which is able to circumvent blind spots in the one-dimensional Fourier transformed display of ESE envelope modulation spectra, whereas van Ormondt and Nederveen1161 could enhance the resolution of ESE spectroscopy by applying the maximum entropy method for the spectral analysis of the time domain data. 

Fig. 6.13. Data obtained by the phase-modulation technique with a Fluorolog tau-3 instrument (Jobin Yvon-Spex) operating with a xenon lamp and a Pockel s cell. Note that because the fluorescence decay is a single exponential, a single appropriate modulation frequency suffices for the lifetime determination. The broad set of frequencies permits control of the proper tuning of the...

During the last years, so-called microhotplates (pHP) have been developed in order to shrink the overall dimensions and to reduce the thermal mass of metal-oxide gas sensors [7,9,15]. Microhotplates consist of a thermally isolated stage with a heater structure, a temperature sensor and a set of contact electrodes for the sensitive layer. By using such microstructures, high operation temperatures can be reached at comparably low power consumption (< 100 mW). Moreover, small time constants on the order of 10 ms enable applying temperature modulation techniques with the aim to improve sensor selectivity and sensitivity. 

The third block in Fig. 2.1 shows the various possible sensing modes. The basic operation mode of a micromachined metal-oxide sensor is the measurement of the resistance or impedance [69] of the sensitive layer at constant temperature. A well-known problem of metal-oxide-based sensors is their lack of selectivity. Additional information on the interaction of analyte and sensitive layer may lead to better gas discrimination. Micromachined sensors exhibit a low thermal time constant, which can be used to advantage by applying temperature-modulation techniques. The gas/oxide interaction characteristics and dynamics are observable in the measured sensor resistance. Various temperature modulation methods have been explored. The first method relies on a train of rectangular temperature pulses at variable temperature step heights [70-72]. This method was further developed to find optimized modulation curves [73]. Sinusoidal temperature modulation also has been applied, and the data were evaluated by Fourier transformation [75]. Another idea included the simultaneous measurement of the resistive and calorimetric microhotplate response by additionally monitoring the change in the heater resistance upon gas exposure [74-76]. 

Furthermore, if one uses the wavelength modulation technique, which is strictly not surface sensitive but only enhances sharp structures and as the bandwidth of a grating monochromator decreases with decreasing energy, the low frequency peak will appear broad for reasonable slit widths. The... 

By modulating the electric field and using phase-sensitive detection methods, Uehara et al. 8 ) were able to increase the sensitivity considerably and they could even detect Stark splittings of less than the doppler width of the components. Fig. 3 shows the Stark spectrum of HDCO for different electric field strengths. Because of the Stark modulation technique the absorption lines appear differentiated the zero points represent the center of each line. 

A) For information hiding applications, high-rate watermarking might be possible. In Sec. 3, we compare the performance of SCS watermarking with three different coded modulation techniques to achieve a rate R of one watermark bit per host-data element. Measured bit-error results are related to those of Chou et al. for the same watermark rate. 

The mapping of a watermark message m onto a sequence of watermark letter depends on the coded modulation technique. However, in all schemes considered, the message m is first mapped onto a binary sequence b, with one element hn G 0,1 for each host-data element. Fig. 8 depicts the block diagrams for the encoding of b into d for 4-aiy-CC-TCM,... 

Neutral species are best sampled using molecular beam methods in which the neutral beam is modulated between the sampling orifice and the ionization chamber of the mass spectrometer and only the modulated component of the mass spectrometer output is recorded. This approach enables all neutral species, including radicals to be detected with a comparable sensitivity. If modulation techniques are not used, the sensitivity for detecting condensible or reactive species is much less than for non-condensible, non-reactive neutral molecules because of the much larger effective pumping speed for the former in the mass spectrometer chamber. However, the ease of installation of non-line-of-sight non-modulated... 

A number of different modulation techniques can be used to increase the signal-to-noise ratio (e.g., see Schiff et al., 1994a, 1994b and Brassington, 1995). For example, the laser beam can be mechanically chopped and detected using phase-sensitive detection with a lock-in amplifier. A more commonly used method for accurately measuring small absorbances is to modulate... 

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