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

高速数字电子学的进步使测量室温气体的高分辨率分子旋转光谱的新方法成为可能。啁啾脉冲傅里叶变换（CP-FT）技术将测量速度提高了大约四个数量级。这一进展使得将分子旋转光谱用于多物种检测和高分子特异性的传统优势带到需要高样品通量或实时化学监测的应用中成为可能。广泛的瞬时频率覆盖范围和光谱特征的高光谱分辨率相结合，使分析复杂的气体混合物成为可能，而无需事先进行化学分离（如气相色谱）。这一优势通过绕过对耗材色谱耗材的需求，降低了光谱仪的总体运行成本。分子旋转光谱学通过分子的量子力学频谱来识别分子。旋转光谱可以使用精密的频率标准，如铷钟，以高频率精度测量。这些特点提供了无与伦比的可转移性测量从实验室到实验室。一旦确定了光谱，它就可以在任何其他仪器上永远被识别出来。下一代CP-FT光谱仪利用高速数字电子技术的进步实现了极高的数据吞吐量，现在可以实现2.4 g /s的频谱采集速率。有可能开发出一种新的化学监测定性分析工具，通过挖掘这些仪器产生的所有光谱数据，可以放大其功能，从而使已知的分子特征目录实时迅速扩大。这种基于广泛部署和互联网连接的CP-FT气体传感器的数据驱动科学分析化学技术的概念有可能在整个工业领域的应用中彻底改变实时化学监测。

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.