MaD, an automated precise analytical ultracentrifuge scanner system

Abstract

The various hardware components of this scanning system, a mechanical split-beam scanner with its photomultiplier measuring slit, minimum analog electronics and an important digital part (computer, interface), are intimately interwoven by an elaborate software. A high degree of automation and sophistication is thus reached. On the one hand, all the photoelectrons coming from each light pulse are integrated. The result, after conversion to digital form enters the computer; a high precision is thus reached: 10(-5) absorbance unit (A.U.) under very favorable conditions, and 10(-4) A.U. for conventional sedimentation studies. On the other hand, during its motion along the image, the precise slit position is permanently known by the system: the sector image is thus segmented into precisely defined zones, inside which the average absorbancies are determined, punched, plotted and printed. New and very useful utilizations and improvements of analytical ultracentrifugation are now possible: the fixed radius mode, permits precise s determination by following the radial dilution; s can be precisely measured by time difference curves even when the solution absorbancy is comparable to the base line variations (0.01 A.U.); round trip analyses permit very long analyses without the absorbancies distributions distorsions due to very long one-way scans during sedimentations runs; reductions of the effect of the stray light by a factor of ten. This system has been in routine use for four years.