IRsweep GmbH

IRsweep offers cutting edge optical sensing technology based on semiconductor QCL frequency combs in the mid-infrared. Millisecond time resolution combined with large spectral bandwidth and high-resolution offer new possibilities in trace gas sensing and on-line process analysis.

These characteristics allow our systems to excel in high-speed measurements of many different molecules even when hidden in a complex background matrix.

It has been nearly six months since IRsweep announced the launch of the revolutionary IRcell - a multipass cell for optical trace gas sensing.With the IRcell, we have introduced a new type of multipass cell consisting of only a single, circular mirror. In this cell, the body at the same time acts as the mirror reflecting the optical beam. The advantage of such a configuration lies in its robustness towards mechanical stress such as vibrations or temperature changes. Furthermore, very compact setups are possible. "With our design, we offer an optical path of 4 m in a sample volume of only 30 ml.

The uniqueness of the IRcell is based on two outstanding properties: its single piece construction and the two-dimensional, star-shaped beam pattern in the cell. Thanks to the two-dimensional beam pattern, the internal volume of the cell can be kept very low. Therefore, IRsweep can reach an optical path of several meters with a sample volume that is ten-fold smaller than in most competing gas cells, resulting in short gas exchange times. The single-piece construction makes the IRcell especially robust and invariant to temperature changes.

There is a range of manufacturers for multipass gas cells. Most cells target the very long path / high sensitivity market (> 30 m optical path). Those cells occupy a large footprint and contain a large gas volume as compared to the IRcell. We aim at applications requiring an optical path length of 1 to 4 m. In such applications, we can provide significantly lower sample volumes as well as smaller dimension cells than currently available.