New products

Welcome to a further installment of the “New Products” column in IEEE Microwave Magazine. In this issue, we present six new items that may be of interest to the RF/microwave and wireless communities.

Features include a microcomputer, designed by the manufacturer, which controls data-handling operations. The machine can outperform most of the micros currently on the market. The basic 256K central processor operates within a purpose-designed disk-operating system. The AN 10000 is the first such system to incorporate Winchester disks as a standard feature: each disk, supported by a back-up floppy disk, provides up to 32 times the on-line data-storage capacity of floppy-disk based systems.
An attraction is a high-resolution colour monitor, used in conjunction with a keyboard and 'mouse'. Interaction between the user and system is through a series of displayed screen menus, and selection from these is made either through the keyboard or the mouse. By simply moving the mouse around on a flat surface, images or cursor may be moved to enhance, clarify and speed up selections.
The ANIO000 X-ray microanalysis systemmconsole and activities menu. The manufacturer, Link Systems, has been established as one of the World's leading manufacturers of X-ray microanalysis and X-ray fluorescence equipment for over a decade. Based in High Wycombe, it exports much of the advanced high-technology equipment it manufactures. Hard copy may be printed-out with a built-in matrix printer/plotter. The system offers 'screen copy' facilities, and data from quantitative analyses can be produced immediately in a quality suitable for reproduction and inclusion in reports.
Link Systems believe that the most important feature of the AN10000 is its operating software. The company has, over the past decade, developed many software packages for specific analysis tasks and the AN 10000 will accept them all. A new package is 'SCREED': for word-processing. The high-performance optical system uses a dual-grating monochromator covering the wavelength range 170-900 nm. A blazed holographic grating is used in the ultraviolet region of the spectrum and each grating is used only in the first order. These factors ensure efficient light handling and low stray light. In addition, the optical system can be purged with an inert gas, so analyses can be performed routinely below 190 nm without purchasing additional components.
The new plasma torch assembly and the compact RF power-supply of the ICP/6500 were designed for stable and reliable operation. The torch is demountable to reduce maintenance costs, and the complete sampleintroduction system is resistant to attack from corrosive sample solutions: strong acids can be aspirated and high concentrations of dissolved solids are also handled easily.
The ICP/6500 is controlled through a Perkin-Elmer 7300 Professional Computer (a 16-bit microcomputer with a 15 megabyte Winchester hard disk and unlimited data archiving on floppy disk). High-resolution colour graphics allow spectra to be compared and evaluated easily, since standards, blanks and samples are displayed in their own designated colours. Analytical results are stored as they are generated on the hard disk and reformatted later to produce customized reports on a multicolour graphics printer.
Bezel-mounted software programmed keys simplify parameter entry for method development. For quantitative multi-element analysis, methods can be built containing up to 108 wavelengths, or the Qmode permits semi-quantitative analysis of a sample by using stored standardization information. The system contains on-line listing of over 50000 analytical wavelengths for rapid identification of unknown emission peaks and wavelength referencing. Analysis of all kinds of oil is carried out using the SpectraSpan in Gunner' s laboratoriessea pollution with oil is just one aspect of its work. A contract has been obtained, for example, for the analysis of aircraft oils and there is frequently a need to test oil additives to see whether they have been broken down due to age or to detect contaminants in oil samples. The use of the SpectraSpan with its high accuracy and repeatability is important in these techniques, as well as for the detection of lead in gasoline which enables the laboratory to report the percentage of contamination in diesel fuel. Gel filtration and gel electrophoresis are techniques already used by the laboratory. The recent introduction of Beckman HPLC systems has provided a way of evaluating protein samples much more rapidly and economically than was previously possible: typically up to six runs per day instead of the previous two or three each week. It is intended that the Beckman HPLC equipment consisting of a simple isocratic system with a 160 UV detectorwill be used additionally in the laboratory for specific amino-acid determinations, as well as a general analytical system.
Croda Colloids Ltd is a major manufacturer of gelatin for the food, pharmaceutical and photographic industries and also produces a range of speciality protein extracts, hydrolysates and chemically-modified derivatives for the cosmetic industry. The Analytical Laboratory on the Ditton site at Widnes provides both a quality-control function and an analytical support service for R&D. successfully for a number of years using UV/visible spectroscopy, but only recently have accessories been available which extend the technique to the infra-red region. As the amount of radiation diffusely reflected is invariably low-around 10% or less-a ratio recording spectrophotometer must be employed. If the IR diffuse reflectance accessory is used in conjunction with any Pye Unicam IR spectrophotometer, all of which utilize the ratio recording principle, it has been found that the technique will succeed with very demanding samples without requiring much, if any, sample handling. Example of asbestos detection by infra-red diffuse-reflectance spectroscopy. The lowtransmission performance of Pye Unicam's PU 9510/9520 series of ratio recording IR spectrophotometers enables them to yield good diffuse-reflectance spectra from very weak signals.

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A recent example of this involved a few tiny fibres of fire-resistant material which needed checking for the presence of asbestos. The conventional approach is to grind the sample with an alkali halide and prepare microdisksa technique demanding considerable expertise. Using diffuse reflectance, the fibres were simply placed on a bed of ground potassium bromide in the accessory sample cup