Research Toward the Application of Real-Time Gas Electron Diffraction as a Detector for Open Tubular Capillary Gas Chromatography

我们建议研究增强实时 气体电子衍射（GED）导致 这种结构分析技术的应用， 开管毛细管流出物的检测 气相色谱（OTC-GC）柱。 我们 小组是第一个成功地检测到衍射 电子通过荧光屏耦合到一个 光电二极管阵列 我们的程序是独一无二的， 使用多通道检测来获得直接的真实的- 蒸气中分子的时间结构信息 相位 后来，我们确定了设计上的改进， 将GED的适用性扩展到 离开气相色谱柱的分析物。 GED提供了一个通用的探测器， 不同分子种类的均匀灵敏度。 的 最奇异的特征是，它产生关于 这些物种的结构组成。 通过组合 GC和GED这两种技术， 结构色谱的新领域。 我们现在 建议探测器增强功能， 这种新方法的适用性，从目前的 对皮升样本量的纳升要求 域，这将使调查与场外交易- GC. 这一工具可能相当重要， 可能作为分析的标准仪器 应用. 此外，检测器增强功能 将在其他正在进行的 实验：在确定结构的 瞬态物质和随时间的动力学研究 分辨率在纳秒制度使用实时 用脉冲电子束进行电子衍射。

We propose to investigate enhancements of real-time Gas Electron Diffraction (GED) leading to application of this structure-analytic technique to the detection of effluents from Open Tubular Capillary Gas Chromatography (OTC-GC) columns. Our group was the first to successfully detect diffracted electrons by a phosphor screen coupled to a photodiode array. Our procedures are unique in the use of multichannel detection to obtain direct real- time structural information on molecules in the vapor phase. Later, we identified improvements in design that extend serviceability of GED to the study of analytes leaving the column of a gas chromatograph. GED affords a universal detector with relatively uniform sensitivity for diverse molecular species. The most singular feature is that it yields information on the structural makeup of those species. By combining the two techniques, GC and GED, we have pioneered a new area of structural chromatography. We now propose detector enhancements aimed at extending the applicability of this new method from the current nanoliter requirement of sample size to the picoliter domain, which would enable investigations with OTC- GC. This tool may find considerable importance, potentially as a standard instrument for analytical applications. In addition, the detector enhancements will pay secondary benefits in other ongoing experiments: in determining the structures of transient species and in kinetic studies with time resolution in the nanosecond regime using real-time electron diffraction with pulsed electron beams.