StellarNet has announced the CXR-FS, a low-cost system for fluorescence spectroscopy. The components include a miniature fibre-optically coupled, thermo-electrically cooled (TEC) UV-VIS spectrometer with concave grating, an LED-based excitation source, and a dual read cuvette sample holder.
The excitation source allows for interchangeable LEDs emitting at a variety of wavelengths from UV through to visible. This is a low-cost alternative to expensive lasers, band-pass filters, and monochrometers.
Liquid samples are placed the CUV-F cuvette holder which accommodates the SL1-LED excitation source. The spectrometer detects fluorescence via dual port fibre optic Y-cable that doubles the signal and covers the 280-900nm detection range. The TEC improves signal to noise by 60 per cent when exposure times are greater than three seconds.
The optical bench contains no moving parts for shock-proof durability in a portable environment for lab and field measurements. The SpectraWiz software suite is included free and works for Fluorescence applications including biomedical (DNA stains and dyes), amino acid analysis (tryptophan/tyrosine), environmental (water contaminants), and general chemistry experiments. SpectraWiz includes Windows drivers with customizable programs for LabVIEW, Visual Basic Automation for Excel, Visual C++, and Delphi Pascal.