Hacking together the cheapest possible but highest bandwidth and highest precision spectroscopic analyzer. Ultimate goal is mass production, these things usually cost an arm and a leg but this is 1000x better and cheaper.

Optically pumped laser pushed through a 50/50 split, shift one side 80MHz and put it back in the loop. Shift again 1khz and put it back in the loop. This gives us a 10THz wide spectrum with uniformly distributed peaks (at 80MHz) and creates something like an optical heterodyne.

We use a software defined radio with an optical coupler to read the resulting spectrum after passing the beam through the edge of a molecule. It's similar to how astronomers determine the chemical composition of exoplanets but we apply it to any material.

We use hydrogen cyanide for calibration, this seems to be the defacto standard.

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Oh wow, didn't even realize!

Very cool. What are some uses? Chemical detection I’m guessing?

This is so cool! Amazing work! πŸΆπŸΎπŸ«‚πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰

nice, at that low freq you get to eliminate EMC radiation issues as well. that an with the rise of monocles, they can be your customers. Just like how HP's first product was an oscilloscope they built with $500 investment, and sold to Disney - well then it became agilent, keysight (at least the test measurement part). i think keysight has obsolete their sprectrometers as well, one less competition.