Xenon: The Full Spectrum vs. Deuterium Plus Tungsten by Robert A. Capobianco

Abstract

Analytical techniques employed in modern methods of substance analysis are essentially derived from the foundation science of atomic and molecular absorption spectroscopy which deals with the theory and interpretation of optical spectra (a.k.a. the quantitative and qualitative study of elements and compounds). Some of the familiar technologies which are based in spectroscopy are: Clinical Chemistry, High Performance Liquid Chromatography, Fluorimetry, Timed-Flight Fluorimetry, Phosphorimetry, Immunoassay Testing, and many others. Instrumentation designed to support these technologies require four fundamental constituents: an appropriate light source, a spectrally dispersive optical element, a detector system and signal processing electronics. The latter three components may be a variety of devices in different configurations such as ruled/holographic gratings or discrete optical filters; photomultipliers, photodiode and CCD arrays; transimpedance amplifiers, or logarithmic voltage converters, using analog to digital or voltage to frequency converters, generally with a CPU/microprocessor based dedicated computer.