Application of an 8080A microprocessor in an infrared spectroreflectometer data acquisition and processing system

A microprocessor system has been designed, fabricated, and employed to automatically generate and process data from an integrating sphere spectroreflectometer. The generation of the data consists of mechanically scanning a grating monochromator through specified wavelength intervals, while simultaneously measuring and storing signals from an infrared detector. The data processing consists of ratioing the detector signals from a sample scan to those from a reference scan to produce sample reflectance, or transmittance if desired, as a function of wavelength. All data processing is performed digitally. However, the system converts the results to analog form and automatically records the reflectance data in an X-Y format with wavelength as the independent variable. Both software and hardware designs are presented and discussed in detail. The performance of the system in the 3- to 15-micron range has been demonstrated by measuring the transmittance of

polystyrene and germanium.