| Author | Message | ||
     Howard Mark (hlmark) Senior Member Username: hlmark Post Number: 406 Registered: 9-2001 |
Zvi - The acronym MEMS is a rather generic catchall term for any mechanical devices whose manufacture is done using silicon wafer technology derived from the semiconductor industry. There are (or were) a couple of companies that made spectrometers whose spectral "engine" was based on such devices; several of them were taken over by Thermo. Two that come to mind are Ahura and Polychromix. I think the one you're thinking of is Polychromix. The promise of "cheap" spectrometers was based on the expectation that by using semiconductor manurfacturing techniques the price of the "engine" could be brought down to levels comparable with computer processors. What they seem to have forgotten is that the price reduction only occurs when you make and sell the product by the millions, as they do with computers. The market for spectrometers does not appear to be approaching that size, though. There's a video (made in 2009) showing a portable Polychromix spectrometer at this link, but it gives no technical information: http://www.spectroscopyeurope.com/blogs/nir-2009/the-exhibition/2221-polychromix-inc Howard \o/ /_\ | ||
| Jerry Jin (jcg2000) Senior Member Username: jcg2000 Post Number: 39 Registered: 1-2009 |
Hi, Zvi I worked on a small near infrared spectrometer. It is smaller than a iPhone. I guess you can call it "MEMS fabricated". This MEMS NIR spectrometer, like most commercial micro spectrometers, uses linear variable filter to "disperse" incident light into a spectrum. We place such a filter on top of a diode array detector and we get a miniaturized spectrometer. It is not secret. Because of exclusion of moving part, mirrors and grating, the spectrometer can be made small and rugged. There are several similar products in the market. You can get more info from the following links: www.ir-microsystems.com/web/products/Flyer_LVF0605_DS.pdf www.wilksir.com/pdf/InfraSpecSpectrometer.pdf These suffer from poor resolution. So you cannot find the fine structure you can normally see from a traditional spectrometer. Hope it helps. Jerry Jin | ||
| Zvi Barnea (barnea) Member Username: barnea Post Number: 15 Registered: 11-2010 |
Hi all, I recently learned about the Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) and/or Micro-opto-electromechanical systems (MOEMS). I wish to get if possible some info as well as experience impressions regarding this technology. When MEMS was introduced, they emphasized that the fact it does not contain a diode array but only a single InGaAs detector, its price would be much cheaper, its physical size would be small and it would be a handler & movable.Although the two last mentioned features were fairly kept, the first one is not really adhered. Less I could learn about its accuracy, resolution, general preformance, signal to noise ratio and most important its ability to detect a weak signal (in comparison to the classical spectrometers). Any relevant information on these related issues is mostly welcomed as well as a referral to R & D groups of this technology. Thank you, Zvi |