Hello, since this is a kind of out of the box idea, I just put it in general…
So, I am working on my master thesis concerning Chemical Education (I’m a Masterstudent in Chemistry).
I am developing a new experiment for teachers to perform in classes. The main idea of the experiment is to show that greenhouse gasses absorb infrared radiation (IR) much more then visual light - and thus warm the atmosphere.
To do this, I ‘designed’ a gas cell with a IR Led, and a photodiode. I now just measure the voltage over the photodiode. So if you have an absorbing medium in between the two, the measured voltage goes down.
But I was wondering if it would be possible to use it as a spectrometer (see a graphical output of amplitude in function of frequency of light). Although now I am just working with cheap Leds, I have ordered a broadband IR source, and a decent (faster) detector.
The idea I had is to couple the detector output to the Oscilloscope (PCSGU250) I found in the lab here. If working with the spectrum analyzer I thought it might maybe just work to get a spectrum of the measured IR.
Do you think this could work, or am I taking this too far? Also, I don’t really know how the oscilloscope works. Is there a bigger manual than the ‘getting started’ one?
If you want more information on the exact principle and working mechanism of the gas cell, please ask.
Thanks a lot!
(ps: I think the main problem is the high frequency of IR waves… Don’t know if I can put some electronics in between that can lower that…)