Process laser diode techniques

The commercialization of inexpensive robust LED and laser diode sources down to the uv region (370 nm) and cheaper fast electronics has boosted the application of luminescence lifetime-based sensors, using both the pump-and-probe and phase-sensitive techniques. The latter has found wider application in marketed optosensors since cheaper and more simple acquisition and data processing electronics are required due to the limited bandwidth of the sinusoidal tone(s) used for the luminophore excitation. Advantages of luminescence lifetime sensing also include the linearity of the Stem-Volmer plot, regardless the static or dynamic nature of the quenching mechanism (equation 10) ... 

The Raman technique has been readily adapted for on-line process analysis, especially in the pharmaceutical industry ". It has the benefits of mid IR, e.g. the ability to identify compounds from the vibrational fundamentals, without the constraints of mid IR, e.g. the limitations of the optical materials that can be used. Its popularity is also due in part to the excellent throughput of optical fibres for the radiation required for Raman, i.e. in the Vis and NIR regions. This use of optical fibre probes (Figure 9.14) facilitates easy in-line analysis because the sample can be remote from the instrumentation, even to hundreds of metres in distance. Fibre optic multiplexers are also available, allowing many samples to be analysed sequentially. Small laser diode sources and CCD detectors can be attached to the optical fibres and changed as required, rendering the overall device small and flexible. Radiation from the laser diode light source is transmitted to the sample by optical fibre... 

Table 3.3 Summary of the initial synthesis processes and deposition techniques leading to the injection laser diode.

Multiplexed diode-laser sensors were applied for measurement and control of gas temperature and species concentrations in a large-scale (50-kilowatt) forced-vortex combustor at NAWC to prove the viability of the techniques and the robustness of the equipment for realistic combustion and process-control applications [11]. The scheme employed was similar to that for measurements and control in the forced combustor and for fast extractive sampling of exhaust gases above a flat-flame burner at Stanford University (described previously). 

Tunable diode-laser sensors offer considerable promise for combustion research and development and also for process sensing and control applications. These devices are rugged and relatively easy to operate and they have been demonstrated to yield simple and quantitative measurements of species, temperature, and velocity, where line-of-sight measurements are useful or preferred. These techniques will grow in use as costs of laser sources and fiber-optic components decrease and access to more wavelength regions improves. 

In recent years much effort has been spent on the development of experimental techniques to grow well defined nanoscale materials, due to their possible applications in nanometric electronic devices. Indeed the creation of nanowire field effect transistors [128-132], nano-sensors [133,134], atomic scale light emitting diodes and lasers [135,136], has been made possible by the development of new techniques, which allow one to control the growth processes of nanotubes, nanowires and quantum dots. Of particular importance, among the different atomic scale systems experimentally studied, are... 

In regions of the spectrum where a tunable laser is available it may be possible to use it to obtain an absorption spectrum in the same way as a tunable klystron or backward wave oscillator is used in microwave or millimetre wave spectroscopy (see Section 3.4.1). Absorbance (Equation 2.16) is measured as a function of frequency or wavenumber. This technique can be used with a diode laser to produce an infrared absorption spectrum. When electronic transitions are being studied, greater sensitivity is usually achieved by monitoring secondary processes which follow, and are directly related to, the absorption which has occurred. Such processes include fluorescence, dissociation, or predissociation, and, following the absorption of one or more additional photons, ionization. The spectrum resulting from monitoring these processes usually resembles the absorption spectrum very closely. 

The diffusion-layer imaging technique which was developed by McCreery is another method for studying intermediates in the diffusion layer [71-75]. A laser beam is directed in a parallel direction through the diffusion layer of the electrode and the light is then magnified and focused on a diode-array detector. With this method, spatial resolution of the diffusion layer of 1.25 pm is achieved, and concentration profiles in the diffusion layer are mapped. A detailed description of mass transport processes as well as the kinetics and spectra of intermediates can be obtained. Diffusion coefficients and extinction coefficients for, for example, the benzophenone radical anion were measured with this technique [74, 75]. 

The principle is quite simple. The MW field is switched on with a variable delay x after the laser flash. The amplitude of the transient signal plotted as a function of x renders the decay of the spin-polarized initial magnetization towards its equilibrium value. This method is preferred over the TREPR technique at low MW power (see equation (bl.15.31)) since the spin system is allowed to relax in the absence of any resonant MW field in a true spin-lattice relaxation process. The experiment is carried out by adding a PIN diode MW switch between the MW source and the circulator (see figure Bl.15.4, and set between a pair of isolators. Since only low levels of MW power are switched (typically less than 1 W), as opposed to those in ESE and FT EPR, the detector need not be protected against high incident power levels. 

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