Доклады

Mirror Cuvettes for Fluorescence Spectroscopy

Vekshin N.L.

nvekshin@rambler.ru

Mirror cuvettes [1-3] are intended for measuring the fluorescence of weakly absorbing solutions and can be used to register the excitation and emission spectra in UV and visible region, and life-times.

The cuvettes provide for many-fold increase of fluorescence intensity due to multiple passage of exciting light through the solution being tested and due to additional fluorescence collected.

In the mirror cuvette, the exciting light is reflected by aluminium layer, applied at the outer walls of a quartz cell and provided with protecting coating. The exciting light entering through a narrow window in the center of the front mirror wall undergoes two or three reflections inside the cuvette. The emission is collected at a right angle. The lateral mirror wall, reflecting fluorescence to the registration channel, provides additional collection of the emitted light. The mirror cuvette guarantees 3-5-fold increase of fluorescence. With this cuvette, light losses and polarization artifacts are minimized compared to a common cell positioned near to concave mirrors. The mirror cuvette can be applied for spectrofluorimeters without any modification.

Mirror micro-cuvette allows use small amounts of solutions (0.2 – 0.4 ml) and provides 3-4-fold increase of fluorescence. This cuvette places in a special holder, which sets into spectrofluorimeter.

In the mirror cuvette with transparent quartz diagonal plate, a sample is pasted or adsorbed on the plate (at its center), which fixed inside by a diagonal manner. The cuvette fills by a solution. The plate can be easy removed or inserted into the cuvette. The same sample can be used many times. This cuvette gives about of 10-fold increase of fluorescence.