ARYELLE Butterfly Echelle Spectrometer – Butterfly with Eagle Eyes

LTB Lasertechnik Berlin presents its new ARYELLE Butterfly echelle spectrometer for simultaneous elemental analysis using laser-induced plasma spectroscopy (LIBS). This spectrometer offers a wide range of applications in material analysis and process control, such as in the steel, glass, and ceramics industries, geology, and environmental analytics.

The new spectrometer concept, developed by LTB Lasertechnik Berlin GmbH in collaboration with the ISAS Institute for Analytical Sciences, Department Berlin, allows for the detection of elements in the wavelength range from 175 nm to 750 nm with a resolution of 35,000 in the VUV range and 15,000 in the UV-VIS-NIR range.

The ARYELLE Butterfly concept is based on the compact ARYELLE echelle spectrograph, which, with high wavelength stability, excellent spectral resolution, and light throughput, can generate spectra of relatively freely selectable dimensions. The spectra from two symmetrically arranged spectrographs of the same design illuminate a common detector.

The two spectrographs can be freely dimensioned in terms of component parameters such as entrance slit, echelle grating, prism, and imaging optics. This gives the double spectrograph ARYELLE Butterfly the ability to measure broad-range LIBS spectra with enormous variability. The spectral range separation when using only one detector is a cost-effective solution that maximizes detector area usage, reduces readout times, and offers flexible exposure times. The switch in the light path is controlled via PC in the millisecond range.

LTB Lasertechnik Berlin offers the ARYELLE Butterfly spectrometer with both a CCD camera with a chopper and an ICCD camera. Using a CCD in combination with a chopper provides better line sampling compared to an ICCD detector due to the better spatial resolution of the detector. In comparison, a factor of approximately 10 better signal-to-noise ratio is achieved due to lower intrinsic noise, and at a lower device cost. The advantages of the ICCD include better temporal resolution and greater variability in control.

The control and analysis software Sophi for ARYELLE, developed by LTB for the ARYELLE series, controls all spectrometer and detector functions. After assigning raw data to corresponding wavelengths, all lines in the spectrum are automatically analyzed using an integrated spectral atlas and, if possible, assigned and listed under the corresponding elements. Future integrations will include quantitative analysis algorithms. For quantitative measurement, calibration with comparable reference materials is necessary.