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From the floor: Ocean Optics

When I saw Ocean Optics (booth 927) promoting “the world’s coolest modular measuring suite that is like nothing you’ve ever seen before” on its booth, I just had to go and investigate. The product with this tag-line is the company’s new “Jaz” spectrometer - and I thought it lived up to the claim.

I was amazed when Marco Snikkers, the company’s commercial director for EMEA, handed me the Jaz. It’s got an embedded micro-processor, an OLED display, a slot for an SD memory card and Ethernet connectivity. A lot of thought has obviously gone into the product design because it has the look and feel of a PlayStation controller and is very simple to use - its just like using a digital camera.

The idea is that you hold the Jaz up to whatever you want to measure, view the spectrum on the display and press save. The display gives you a rough idea of what the spectrum looks like and then you can view it in more detail by transferring the spectral data over to your PC.

A simple menu system lets you choose the type of measurement you want to make: reflectance, transmittance etc. The design is also modular so, as Snikkers demonstrated on the booth, the Jaz can also be expanded to include a light source, rechargeable lithium-ion battery and up to eight spectrometer modules.

As well as the Jaz, Ocean Optics is exhibiting a laser assisted microwave plasma spectroscopy (LAMPS) system, which extends the capabilities of conventional laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS).

“Current LIBS technology ablates a minute portion of the solid or liquid sample and then analyzes the resulting plasma,” explained Snikkers. “LAMPS takes this a step further by employing a special microwave cavity to enhance the plasma discharage, which increases the sensitivity greatly.”

Last but not least, the company is also showing a new line of spectrometers that use a back-thinned CCD sensor which has an improved UV response. The products to look out for are the Maya2000 series and the QE65000 spectrometers.

Posted by Jacqueline Hewett on January 23, 2008 8:11 PM | Permalink