Instruments and Applications for Absorption and Fluorescence Spectroscopy

我们的研究小组活跃在激光光谱学和传感领域。我们制造光谱仪，光纤探头，折射计，以及用于光学吸收，荧光，机械应变，振动和加速度的微型传感器。我们开发的大多数仪器都是为了在化学实验室之外检测和量化化学物质而设计的，即由非专业人员在可能像发动机内部一样恶劣的环境中进行检测和量化。凭借我们在化学，工程和光学方面的专业知识，我们可以充分利用电信，成像和传感领域商业发展的进步。在开发仪器时，我们制作原型，编写自己的软件，并经常设计自己的电子电路。在所有的研究项目中，我们首先建立内部专业知识，然后与工业界和学术界的合作者合作，进一步开发我们的仪器，然后面向其应用。这给我们的研究带来了最大的影响，并为HQP提供了一个建立国际工业和学术联系网络的机会。在这里，我们建议建立一些新的仪器和开发新的技术，为我们和我们的合作者提供更好的工具来量化化学物质。项目套件分为四类，包括仪器设计、基础光学、光谱学、光化学和微分析化学。即使我们应用光谱方法，分析物的浓度也不能通过光强测量来确定。众所周知，在不受控制的环境中，光强度很难量化，因此我们关注的技术可以让我们从衰减率（衰减时间）、调制相移、干涉图、共振频移或（如果其他一切都失败的话）强度比中推断浓度。例如，在未来几年中，我们将把腔增强光谱的新技术应用于微光子谐振器。我们将使用微球谐振器和硅纳米线传感器，通过测量共振频移和光衰减时间来实现分析物的定量，达到前所未有的水平。我们还将充分利用我们最近共同开发的最敏感和抗噪声的光纤应变传感器之一来开发用于吸收（!）光谱的光纤探头。为了证明其抗噪性，这种光纤应变传感器以前被用作吉他拾音器，但它作为光声光谱的光纤水听器具有更大的潜力。最后，我们将使用最新一代的数字微镜阵列，使用紫外-可见光进行“二元”傅立叶变换光谱。这种新的可编程光源将用于使荧光激发-发射矩阵光谱比目前可能的快1000倍，而光谱分辨率没有任何损失。这些新工具与最近在薄膜表征测量方面的创新相结合，将使我们能够开发下一代化学微传感器。与我们合作的工业伙伴和学术专家将与我们合作，将这些新系统应用于环境监测、化学过程控制、发动机流体监测和化学微观分析。推进这项研究的学生不仅将获得仪器设计、材料科学、光学和分析化学方面宝贵的技术专长，而且还将成为称职的沟通者和项目经理。结合所有HQP获得的国际曝光，他们处于有利地位，可以在工业研发和学术研究中产生影响。

Our research group is active in the areas of laser spectroscopy and sensing. We build spectrometers, fiber probes, refractometers, as well as micro-sensors for optical absorption, fluorescence, mechanical strain, vibration and acceleration. Most of the instruments we develop are designed to detect and quantify chemicals outside a chemistry lab, i.e. by non-experts and in environments that may be as hostile as the inside of an engine.With our expertise in chemistry, engineering, and optics we can take full advantage of the advances of the commercial developments in the telecom, imaging and sensing areas. When developing instruments we fabricate prototypes, write our own software and frequently design our own electronic circuitry. In all research programs, we first build in-house expertise and then work with collaborators in industry and academia on further development of our instruments that is then geared towards their applications. This gives our research the largest impact and provides HQP with an opportunity to build an international network of industrial and academic contacts. Here, we propose to build a number of new instruments and develop new techniques that give us and our collaborators much improved tools to quantify chemicals. The project suites fall into four categories spanning instrument design, fundamental optics, spectroscopy, photochemistry and micro-analytical chemistry. Even though we apply spectroscopic methods, the analyte concentrations will not be determined from light intensity measurements. Light intensity is notoriously difficult to quantify in uncontrolled environments and we therefore focus on techniques that let us infer concentrations either from decay rates (ring-down times), modulation phase shifts, interferograms, resonance frequency shifts, or, if everything else fails, intensity ratios. For example, in the next years we will apply new techniques in cavity-enhanced spectroscopy to micro-photonic resonators. We will use micro-sphere resonators and silicon nanowire sensors to achieve an unprecedented level of quantitation of analytes by measuring resonance frequency shifts and optical decay times.We will also take full advantage of our recent co-development of one of the most sensitive and noise-immune fiber strain sensors to develop an optical fiber probe for absorption (!) spectroscopy. To demonstrate its noise-immunity this fiber strain sensor was previously used as a guitar pickup, but it has a much greater potential as a fiber optic hydrophone for photoacoustic spectroscopy. Finally, we will use the latest generation of digital micromirror arrays to perform “binary” Fourier transform spectroscopy using UV-Vis light. This new programmable lightsource will be used to make fluorescence excitation-emission matrix spectroscopy about 1000-times faster as is currently possible – without any loss in spectral resolution. These new tools combined with recent innovations in film characterization measurements will allow us to develop the next generation of chemical micro-sensors. Industrial partners and academic experts, with whom we already collaborate, will work with us in the application of these new systems to environmental monitoring, chemical process control, engine fluid monitoring, and chemical micro-analysis. The students who advance this research will not only obtain invaluable technical expertise in instrument design, material science, optics, and analytical chemistry, but they will also become competent communicators and project managers. Combined with the international exposure that all HQP obtain they are well-positioned to make an impact in, both, industrial R&D as well as in academic research.