Instrument Design for Low-Temperature Infrared Spectroscopy of Materials

Abstract

Solid material analysis has come a long way in its ability to accurately characterize the structure of bulk materials progressing from magnifying glasses to today’s atomic resolution instruments. Present common techniques include the use of various IR spectroscopies to determine the structural properties of these materials. Typically, these methods are low-resolution and are used to pinpoint only a few vibrational modes in the material’s structure. In addition, these studies are either done near room temperature or at one temperature setting. This poster presents a custom-built cryogenic FTIR instrument that is capable of characterizing a given material from room temperature down to 30K with < 2 cm-1 resolution. Shown to the right and below is the design, creation and specific components of the cryogenic instrument, future plans include incorporating gas-species dosing to allow for gas adsorption experiments. The Dodson laboratory is one of few labs capable of cryogenic IR analysis of various metal and covalent-organic frameworks using these necessary techniques to fully characterize the changes in structure and vibrational modes of these materials as they approach extremely low temperatures.​