Publications

The authors report here the design, fabrication and demonstration of an electrostatically actuated MEMS diffractive optical device, the Polychromator grating. The Polychromator grating enables a new type of correlation spectrometer for remote detection of a wide range of chemical species, offering electronic programmability, high specificity and sensitivity, fast response and ruggedness. Significant results include: (1) The first demonstrations of user-defined synthetic spectra in the 3-5 {micro}m wavelength regime based upon controlled deflection of individual grating elements in the Polychromator grating; (2) The first demonstration of gas detection by correlation spectroscopy using synthetic spectra generated by the Polychromator grating.

A new mode of operation for an ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) has been demonstrated that uses potential wells to trap and separate ions by their mobility. This mode of operation has been made feasible by the improvements in personal computers that now allow real-time control of the potentials on ring electrodes in the IMS drift tube. This mode of operation does not require a shutter grid and allows the accumulation of ions in the potential well to enhance the ion signal. Loss of ions from the potential well is controlled by the radial electric fields required by Gauss's law.