Smoke and Mirrors: Ultra-Rapid-Scan FT-IR
Spectrometry
The vibrations can be clearly seen in the laser frequency
(or optical velocity) profile. The underlying sinusoidal velocity profile can also be
clearly seen. The x-axis is monotonic in time, but is itself modified by the velocity
variation because it is indexed by zero-crossing. The peak frequency here is 130 kHz and
the fluctuations are about 20 kHz. This corresponds to a velocity of 6.5 cm/s with
fluctuations of 10% (ignoring the underlying sinusoidal profile). In spite of these
velocity variations the SNR of the recorded spectrum is quite good. This indicates that
the use of the reference laser to compensate for velocity variation is effective. The
high-speed mirror is mounted much more securely on a rugged motor.
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