I-Corps: Commercialization of Chirped-Pulse Fourier Transform THz Spectrometers for Gas Analysis

University Of Virginia Main Campus, Charlottesville VA

Investigators

Abstract

Advances in high-speed digital electronics have enabled a new approach for measuring high-resolution molecular rotational spectra of room-temperature gases. The chirped-pulse Fourier transform (CP-FT) technique improves measurement speeds by about four orders-of-magnitude over the current state-of-the-art. This advance makes it possible to bring the traditional advantages of molecular rotational spectroscopy for multispecies detection and high molecular specificity to applications that require high sample throughput or real-time chemical monitoring. The combination of broad instantaneous frequency coverage and high spectral resolution of the spectroscopic features makes it possible to analyze complex gas mixtures without the need for prior chemical separation (like gas chromatography). This advantage produces lower overall spectrometer operating costs by bypassing the need for consumable chromatography supplies. Molecular rotational spectroscopy identifies molecules through their quantum mechanical frequency spectrum. The rotational spectrum can be measured with high frequency accuracy using precision frequency standards like rubidium clocks. These features provide unsurpassed transferability of measurements from lab-to-lab. Once the spectrum is identified, it can forever be recognized on any other instrument. The next-generation CP-FT spectrometers exploit advances in high-speed digital electronics to achieve exceptionally high data throughput - with spectrum acquisition rates of 2.4 Gs/s now possible. There is the potential to develop a qualitatively new analytical tool for chemical monitoring whose power is amplified by mining all of the spectral data produced by these instruments so that the known catalog of molecular signatures rapidly expands in real time. This concept of a data enabled science driven analytical chemistry technique based on widely deployed and internet-connected CP-FT gas sensors has the potential to revolutionize real-time chemical monitoring in applications across the industrial spectrum.