Page 76 - MTW JANUARY 2022 Digital Magazine

TECH INNOVATION

designer or manufacturer always aims for. Enter hermetic sealing. Integration – be aware, everywhere!
The most advanced spectrometers today are designed with The move to Industry 4.0 and the ubiquitous demand for
hermetically sealed optical chambers that are filled with Argon seamless integration and connectivity has left no field untouched.
and also fitted with a repurification system. This ensures that the Spectrometry is no exception to this. Indeed, being so critical to an
optics are always completely inert and achieve stability as soon organization’s quality and operations, the more easily, seamlessly
as the temperature stabilizes and also results in the spectrometer and immediately data outputs from spectrometers are available to
consuming far less Argon than any purged optics system while those that matter, the better. For decades though, the reality has
also not consuming any of the energy that is required by a been that if you wanted to see the outputs from the instrument,
vacuum optics design. you had to walk over to it – or at best, you could connect a remote
transmission station to it, but would require this station to be
The rise of CMOS within line-of-sight of the instrument itself. For someone used
Detector technology has changed thrice since detectors and to such setups, the truly modern OES of today will seem almost
computers replaced photographic plates. The first, of course unrecognizable!
was the usage of PMT (Photomultiplier Tube) detectors. In the For starters, the OES of today is smarter even at the
second change, linear-array CCD (Charge Coupled Device) workstation itself. Today’s modern OES come equipped with
detectors replaced PMTs – offering the benefit of much better integrated touch screens that constantly show users the health
wavelength coverage, much smaller footprints and also, lower status of the unit, self-diagnose, proactively update users about
costs. In the latest change, high-end CMOS (Complementary impending failures / maintenance requirements and even provide
Metal Oxide Semiconductor) detectors have replaced CCDs as alerts regarding operator oversight. The instruments also leverage
well. CMOS detectors offer all the benefits of CCDs, and add cloud infrastructure and various communication modes and can
some more, namely far greater sensitivity, far higher speeds, and deliver real-time reports and updates onto the mobile phones of
also immediate digitization of data, making them by far the most users even thousands of miles away. Needless to say, integrating
optimal detectors for high-end applications including gaseous these units with foundry management systems, different
element analysis, time-resolved spectroscopy, ultra-trace level databases and other IT tools is simplicity itself!
analysis and a lot more!
In conclusion - old horses have learned a ton of new
tricks!
The innovations mentioned above are merely the tip of the
iceberg. There are multiple other advancements too that have
been made ‘under the hood’. The data rates, redundancies, and
ease of operating as well as servicing spectrometers have seen
quantum leaps in the last decade. These though, remain largely
invisible to users – who merely see the dramatically improved
performance levels and the sudden emergence of spectrometers
that not only analyse routine elements, but even ones that used to
be considered “impossible” a mere five years ago.
From Oxygen to Mercury and from Potassium to Hydrogen,
there is virtually no stable naturally-occurring element in the
world that today’s modern OES can’t analyse – and analyse down
to ppm levels. Evidence, if any were needed, that the age of a
technology is no bar to innovation and proof that when it comes
to the world of technology, old horses not only can, but indeed do
learn the newest of tricks!

The author, Mukund Pant is Director at
The Metavision-1008i3 features ultra-high resolution dual Metal Power Analytical Pvt. Ltd.
optics, employs the latest generation CMOS detectors and He is contactable on his e-mail ID:
custom-developed optical components. Nitrogen analysis
from 8 ppm & Oxygen analysis from 10 ppm. mukund.pant@metalpower.net

72 MACHINE TOOLS WORLD JANUARY 2022 www.mtwmag.com