Pushing the limits: Optical spectroscopy at the extremes

In this final session of a four-part ‘Fundamentals of Spectroscopy’ course, having now covered the basics, we will look at several advanced applications that do the seemingly impossible, from counting individual photons to looking inside exploding plasmas.

We will examine both the immense technical challenges involved, as well as the scientific value they provide. We will look at several recent high-profile publications and break down how they work – what novel things the results tell us about the world, what equipment was used and why, and what made the measurements so difficult and noteworthy.

Key learning objectives

• Discover different camera designs such as CCDs, sCMOS, EMCCDs and intensified-gated CCDs.
• Understand the signal-to-noise ratio in an optical measurement. Identify the distinct contributions to the overall noise. Learn about approaches to minimize sensor noise, as well as enhancing sensor sensitivity to optimize the signal-to-noise ratio in an optical measurement.
• Discover how sensitivity in EMCCDs can be used to detect single photons in quantum optics and single molecule spectroscopy application.
• Understand how intensified-gated CCDs can be used to obtain nanosecond time resolution in optical emission spectroscopy (OES) based plasma diagnostics.
• Learn how intensified-gated scMOS cameras are used for high-speed, high-resolution micro-laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (µ-LIBS) experiments.

Presenter: Shayne Harrel (Andor Technology)

Shayne Harrel is a spectroscopy specialist for the Americas at Andor. He holds a PhD in physical chemistry from Yale University where he studied dynamical processes in charge transfer systems, magnetic materials and semiconductors using time-resolved terahertz spectroscopy. Prior to joining Andor, he was a senior applications engineer at MKS Instruments and has held previous positions as Chief Scientist-Americas for Izon Science, Senior Applications Scientist for Olympus Corporation, and as a chemist for the US Food and Drug Administration.

Presenter: Georgina Wynne Hughes (Editorial Team)

Georgina studied at Birmingham University where she gained a BSc in Biomedical Science, and an MSc by Research in Cancer and Genomic Sciences, which focused on defective autophagy in rare neurodegenerative diseases. As a member of the Editorial team, she now plays an integral role in shaping the content on SelectScience.