Measurements of deuterium lamp noise implications for UV instrumentation

摘要

Deuterium lamps with their characteristic UV continuum are used extensively in analytical instrumentation for chemical and biochemical assays, and are often cited as the limiting factor in identification of trace compounds of significance to investigators. The noise figures we obtained for many deuterium lamps are of the order of 0.01%-0.02% peak-to-peak. The equivalent figures in absorption units (AU) are for example the value 0.000065AU for 0.015% peak-to-peak. This number is much lower than the value of 0.001 AU that has been assumed for chemical analyses, and suggests that the origin of the noise variations in such instrumentation now needs to be properly established. Noise measurements and implications are presented.