| Planar array infrared (PA-IR) spectroscopy has recently been employed as an alternative to Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy for studies involving dynamic chemical events. At the onset of this thesis, most PA-IR instruments were grating-based, which typically provided a sufficient spectral resolution but a poor spectral coverage. The results of this thesis demonstrated that prism-based spectrographs can be viable alternatives to grating-based spectrographs when spectral coverage is more important than spectral resolution. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction into FT-IR and PA-IR spectroscopy. Chapter 2 focused on the development of macroscopic transmission prism-based spectrographs, Chapter 3 evaluated the performance of an attenuated total internal reflection (ATR)-PA-IR spectrograph, Chapter 4 investigated the potential for PA-IR microspectroscopy and Chapter 5 employed ATR-PA-IR spectroscopy as a detection technique for liquid chromatography. Chapter 6 deviates slightly from the rest of this thesis and involved comparing macro ATRFT- IR and micro ATR-FT-IR imaging for the analysis of counterfeit pharmaceutical tablets. |
