Varian Associates, Inc.

Andrew T Zander

Charles B Cooper, Iii

Ring-Ling Chien

James T Arnold

Elbert S Lile

A solid-state detector for use in an atomic spectrometer comprises a plurality of arrays of sensing elements, or pixels, each of the arrays being positioned along and on the locations of spectral signals on a focal plane of an echelle grating spectrometer. The sensing elements are positioned along the many diffraction orders presented on a two-dimensional echelle grating focal plane so that at least one element is located at each and every resolution element regardless of global x-y coordinate positioning of the elements or with reference to each other. The result is a series of skewed lines of sensing elements, those lines being in the same shape as the series of diffraction order lines which comprise an echelle spectrum. The solid-state detector is particularly useful in an atomic spectrometer wherein an echelle grating is used to diffract incident radiation such that the various components of the radiation may be observed.

Optical detector for echelle spectrometer

A spark sampling microparticle generator device and method providing means to first ionize a gap and then to switch a stabilized and controllable current into and out of said ionized gap to provide extremely high, selectable current density in a sample material in said gap with very fast rise and fall times to ablate said material to form microparticles. A plurality of identical modular circuits containing high frequency power transistors are selectably switchably connected in parallel simultaneously to the gap to achieve current densities which are higher than achievable with a single transistor, thereby obtaining the benefits of the high frequency response without being limited by the current limitations of the available transistors.

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Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Andrew T Zander