Vacuum Benefits for High-End Research Using FT-IR Techniques

Atmospheric disturbance is a major problem in Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The different vibrational modes of water vapour and carbon dioxide in a laboratory atmosphere have their absorption bands in the whole mid infrared and far infrared (FIR) spectral range. This reduces instrument sensitivity and stability and can even mask relevant spectral features of the sample. Common approaches to reducing these effects are drying, purging or retroactive compensation by data manipulation. To solve the problem at the root, is to not only keep water and CO2 content constant, but to eliminate it by evacuation of the whole beam path.

In this webinar, Dr. Xia Stammer, FT-IR application scientist at Bruker Optics, will describe how a vacuum not only terminates the water lines, but essentially increases stability, sensitivity, reproducibility, and thus the overall performance of the spectrometer. This is of great importance for many high-end research applications such as FIR/THz spectroscopy, catalysis, surface analysis, emission, low-temperature spectroscopy, material research, solid state physics, and optronics.