Nicolet Instrument Corporation

Other

D Warren Vidrine

Joel P Covey

Charles R Anderson

Daniel R Allhands

An interferometer spectrometer having a source of infrared analytical radiation, a fixed reflector, a moving reflector and a beam splitter for directing the analytical radiation to the reflectors. The beam splitter is formed of a semiconductor material which, in a preferred embodiment, is silicon. In a preferred physical embodiment, the beam splitter is configured as a wedge.

Silicon beamsplitter

A light-pipe flow cell (10) for high pressure fluids is disclosed which has a main support body (15) with a gold light-pipe element (22) mounted therein. Infrared transmissive windows (26, 27) are mounted to the main support body against sealing rings (31, 32) to seal off the polished central bore (23) of the light-pipe element from ambient atmosphere while allowing an infrared beam to be passed therethrough. Pressure plates (14, 18) are mounted to the main support body (15) to apply pressure to the windows over the sealing rings to tightly seal the windows without exerting undue stress thereon. Flow of liquid or supercritical fluid from a chromatography column is directed through inlet channels (35, 38) in the support body and light-pipe element to one end of the light-pipe bore (23) and out of the opposite end of the bore through a channel (41) in the light-pipe element and a communicating channel (36) in the main support body. The flow cell (10) may be connected in a supercritical fluid chromatography system wherein effluent from the chromatography column (64) is passed through the flow cell (10) and is subjected to an infrared beam to allow infrared spectrometric analysis.

Light-pipe flow cell for supercritical fluid chromatography

An analytical instrument including a source of analytical radiation, a support for a sample to be analyzed, an analytical radiation detector and optical elements for directing the analytical radiation within the instrument including a beam condenser system having elements for focusing the radiation relative to the sample support and the detector and elements for collimating radiation focused relative to the sample support and deflecting it for focusing on the detector. The collimating and deflecting elements are supported for common movement in a first direction with the collimating element being supported for movement, independently of the deflecting element, in a second direction orthogonal to the first direction. The collimating and deflecting elements may each be reflecting elements or the collimating element may be a refracting element. The sample support may be movable in two directions coordinated with the directions of movement of the collimating and deflecting elements and may be adapted to accept an ATR crystal. The sample support and beam condenser system may be contained in a dedicated sample compartment with the movement(s) of the collimating and deflecting elements compensating for differences in the thickness of samples supported by the sample support and for differences in optical path to and from a sample supported by the sample support.

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Madison, WI, United States of America

D Warren Vidrine