Optical spectrometer and method of implementing optical spectroscopy

Abstract

An optical spectrometer (1) with an interferometer having a means for varying the optical path difference comprising a drive (8), and with a detector (6) for recording optical signals from the interferometer and converting them into electrical analog signals, wherein an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) (9) is connected to the detector (6) digitizing the electrical analog signals in a time-equidistant manner, is characterized in that the data acquisition electronics (17) are supplied by a switched power supply (14), the clock of which is derived from the same reference oscillator (16) as the clock of the signal digitization by the ADC (9). In contrast to known spectrometers with spatially equidistant sampling of the detector signal, the design of the spectrometer according to the invention is considerably cheaper and more compact with respect to its voltage supply elements. Galvanic separation of the data acquisition electronics and the electronic control unit of the linear drive is no longer required.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.