The three key elements of the solution

1. The Kore TDC/histogramming unit

The Kore time-to-digital converter and histogramming unit combines, on one state-of-the-art PCB, electronics that used to require a rack. Packaged as a stand-alone unit for best timing noise performance, arrival times are both recorded and processed in hardware, as the name implies, to build a spectrum without intervention by the host computer. The host timing performance is thus not critical and thus the use of a non-real-time operating system such as Windows 95 does not present a problem.

2. GRAMS/AI

GRAMS/AI is a Windows based software package for spectroscopic and chromatographic processing, plotting and viewing offered by Thermo Galactic Corp. It has extensive facilities and is capable of exchanging and organising information used with other packages, e.g. reports, databases, graphics etc. In addition there are add-on applications that provide specialist processing, such as chemometrics and there is a powerful macro language, Array Basic, to ease repetitive tasks. Because it is used by a wide customer base in many fields, Grams enjoys the support of an extensive software team who continually improve facilities and ensure that it can take advantage of all the latest operating system features. Kore is an approved value-added reseller for GRAMS/AI and has made use of its flexible customization features to provide a friendly graphical user interface for TOF SIMS data collection.

3. Chemical map acquisition application

Kore have written a new Windows 98SE application to collect chemical maps using the Kore TDC described above, for those instruments that have scannable primary beams. An analogue output card provides the scan control while the application records multiple (up to 16) chemical maps simultaneously. The acquired images may be viewed during the acquisition and are saved as standard format *.bmp files, suitable for later processing by a wide variety of third party packages including the simple versions that are included free with Windows. The application is fully multitasking and therefore happily coexists with other software in a normal Windows environment. The acquisition may be run as a standalone application, but more often is launched from a purpose built interface under GRAMS/AI (above) that simplifies the selection of mass windows of interest.

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Last updated: Thursday, September 15, 2005, 12:04