Methods and devices for optically determining a characteristic of a substance

摘要

Optical computing devices are disclosed. One exemplary optical computing device includes an electromagnetic radiation source configured to optically interact with a sample and first and second integrated computational elements arranged in primary and reference channels, respectively, the first and second computational elements are configured to be either positively or negatively correlated to the characteristic of the sample. The first and second integrated computational elements produce first and second modified electromagnetic radiations, and a detector is arranged to receive the first and second modified electromagnetic radiations and generate an output signal corresponding to the characteristic of the sample.

主权项

1. A device, comprising:
an electromagnetic radiation source configured to optically interact with a sample having a characteristic of interest; a first integrated computational element arranged within a primary channel and configured to optically interact with the electromagnetic radiation source and produce a first modified electromagnetic radiation, wherein the first integrated computational element is configured to be positively or negatively correlated to the characteristic of interest; a second integrated computational element arranged within a reference channel and configured to optically interact with the electromagnetic radiation source and produce a second modified electromagnetic radiation, wherein the second integrated computational element is configured to be positively or negatively correlated to the characteristic of interest; a first detector arranged to generate a first resulting signal from the first modified electromagnetic radiation; a second detector arranged to generate a second resulting signal from the second modified electromagnetic radiation; and a signal processor configured to receive the first and second resulting signals and generate an output signal corresponding to the characteristic of the sample, wherein, when the first resulting signal increases with an increased sample characteristic, the second resulting signal decreases, and wherein, when the first resulting signal decreases with the increased sample characteristic, the second resulting signal increases.