Patent ID: 6813019
Filing Date: 2004-11-02
Classification: G01J,G01N

Abstract:
A method for spectrochemical analysis of a sample comprising:(i) interacting a representative portion of the sample and a spectroscopic radiation source to produce spectral radiation of the sample, (ii) measuring the intensity of the spectral radiation as a function of wavelength by passing the spectral radiation through a polychromator onto a multi-element solid state detector comprising a plurality of pixels and reading said plurality of pixels of the detector, including: (iii) exposing all said pixels of the detector to the spectral radiation for plurality of common exposure times of varying duration whereby for short exposure times charge accumulation in those pixels of the detector coincident with high intensity components of the spectral radiation is limited and for longer exposure times charge accumulation in pixels of the detector coincident with feeble intensity components of the spectral radiation is increased, (iv) obtaining a separate data set for each exposure time such that measurement data at a wavelength at which the intensity is high is obtainable from a data set collected for short duration exposure time and measurement data at a wavelength at which the intensity is low is obtainable from a data set collected for a relatively long duration exposure time, and (v) extracting spectrochemical information about the sample from measurement data selected from different ones of the separate data sets.