Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Natural Sciences

First Advisor

Shipman, Steven

Keywords

Chirped-pulse Millimeter-wave Spectrometer, Evaluation

Area of Concentration

Chemistry

Abstract

A spectrometer operating from 110 to 170 GHz was constructed. The instrument design for this spectrometer was adapted from the design of a spectrometer at the University of Virginia that operates between 260 and 295 GHz. The newly-built spectrometer here uses an arbitrary waveform generator to produce a chirped pulse which is multiplied by a factor of 12 via an amplifier multiplier chain (AMC) to reach 110-170 GHz.A local oscillator, also produced by the AWG, is multiplied by the same factor of 12 and serves to downconvert the molecular emission, allowing for the collection of the free induction decay (FID) by a 40 GS/s digitizer. Benchmark measurements were taken for methanol at room temperature. Improvements on signal-to-noise ratios, data collection times, and instrument sensitivity will be discussed.

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