title: Development of a time-resolved attenuated total reflectance spectrometer in far-ultraviolet region.
abstract: A far-ultraviolet transient absorption spectrometer based on time-resolved attenuated total reflectance (ATR) has been developed and tested for aqueous solutions of phenol and tryptophan in the region 170-185 nm. In this region, a stable tunable laser was not available, and therefore, white light from a laser-driven Xe lamp source was used. The time resolution, which was determined by the time response of a continuous light detector, was 40 ns. A new ATR cell where a sample liquid is exchanged continuously by a flow system was designed to reduce efficiently the stray light from the excitation light. We have tested the performance of the instrument by using aqueous solutions of phenol and tryptophan, whose photochemistry is already well known. Phenol and tryptophan have very strong absorptions due to a π-π∗ transition near 180 nm. Even for dilute solutions (10(-3) mol dm(-3)), we could observe decreases in their concentrations due to photochemistry that occurred upon their irradiation with a fourth harmonic generation laser pulse produced by an Nd:YAG laser. The sensitivity of the spectrometer was about 10(-4) abs, which corresponded to a concentration variation of 10(-3) mol dm(-3) for phenol and tryptophan.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, School of Science and Technology, Kwansei Gakuin University, Sanda, Hyogo 669-1337, Japan.
authors.forename: Yusuke
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Morisawa
authors.forename: Noboru
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Higashi
authors.forename: Kyoko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Takaba
authors.forename: Naomi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kariyama
authors.forename: Takeyoshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Goto
authors.forename: Akifumi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ikehata
authors.forename: Yukihiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ozaki
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D007834:Lasers; D010783:Photometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013056:Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet / Q000295:instrumentation*