Grad Seminar: Towards a Novel Optical Spectroscopy Technique Using Photon Absorption Remote Sensing
Presenter
Jodh Singh Dhillon, MASc candidate in Systems Design Engineering
Abstract
We present an optical spectroscopy system based on photon absorption remote sensing (PARS) that simultaneously captures radiative and non-radiative sample relaxation following UV-excitation. Non-radiative relaxations are measured through probing the thermal and pressure induced refractive index changes of an excited sample, while a spectrometer is used to record radiative sample relaxation, which occurs in the form of fluorescence. We benchmark the generated non-radiative, radiative and combined total absorption PARS absorbance spectra of liquid eumelanin, NADH, DMSO and methylene blue samples against data collected from a UV-visible NanoDrop spectrophotometer. Finally, we leverage the absorption and fluorescence data collected from the PARS system to accurately determine the make-up of mixed craft ink samples. The PARS system overcomes the limitations of traditional optical spectroscopy techniques by broadening the range of samples which can be analyzed and providing a more detailed level of sample characterization.