Ocean Optics Launches QE Pro Spectrometer

Spectrometer delivers market-best sensitivity and performance

The QE Pro is a high-sensitivity, back-thinned CCD array spectrometer with outstanding quantum efficiency, wide dynamic range and extremely low noise operation for applications with low light levels and where wide concentration ranges are measured.

The QE Pro has an optical design that maximizes performance for a range of application needs. With its 18-bit A/D, QE Pro has dynamic range performance that makes it the highest sensitivity miniature spectrometer available today. This is significant for users monitoring emission spectroscopy, especially fluorescence and Raman, where signals may be weak and minimum detectable sample limits are often challenging. In addition, for both absorption and reflectance in quality control applications, QE Pro provides lower limits of detection and enables measurements over a wider concentration range.

For kinetics researchers and scientists requiring fast, full spectrum acquisitions, the QE Pro provides onboard buffering capability. The 15,000 spectra onboard buffer maintains data integrity by buffering time-stamped spectra for USB communications. Buffering enables full-spectrum kinetics measurements, such as those used in chemical and enzyme kinetics or protein folding to be performed every 8 milliseconds -- or 125 measurements per second.

Thermoelectric control improves the stability of the detector for lengthy measurements, where thermal noise convolutes the signal. TEC cooling dramatically reduces thermal noise and holds QE Pro’s stability to 4 dark counts over a 60 °C ambient temperature range. This stability allows the spectrometer to be used for demanding online and at-line quality control measurements and in environments susceptible to temperature changes.

QE Pro spectrometers are also available with replaceable, precision laser-cut slit and aperture assemblies for SMA 905 and FC connectors. Replaceable slits give users more freedom in spectrometer design and the ability to switch among applications such as fluorescence and absorbance as easily as replacing a few screws. The slits are available with SMA 905 or FC connectors and are available separately or as part of a kit comprising one each of 5 µm, 10 µm, 25 µm, 50 µm, 100 µm and 200 µm width slits and one SMA bulkhead with no slit installed.

About Ocean Optics
Headquartered in Dunedin, Fla., Ocean Optics is a leading supplier of solutions for optical sensing – fundamental methods of measuring and interpreting the interaction of light with matter. With locations in the Americas, Europe and Asia, the company has sold more than 220,000 spectrometers worldwide since 1992. Ocean Optics’ extensive line of complementary technologies includes chemical sensors, analytical instrumentation, optical fibers and optics. The company is a subsidiary of Halma plc, an international market leader in safety, health and sensor technology.