Facilities

The Laboratory for Molecular Cryospectroscopy (LMC)  is located in the 2nd floor (E floor) of the building of the Department of Chemistry of the Faculty for Sciences and Technology of the University of Coimbra. It has two main laboratorial spaces linked to one lasers’ room, auxiliary preparative laboratories and offices.

Low-temperature matrix-isolation instrumentation in room.

Laser's room.

Equiment

Light sources:

Optical parametric oscillator (OPO) pumped with Nd:YAG laser
- Nd-YAG Quanta-Ray PRO-230-10 Laser with BeamLok-355 and EEO-355 Enhanced Energy Options and second and third harmonic generators
- Spectra-Physics MOPO SL, with FDO-970, IEEE-488 and MAP-SL options (bandwidth 0.2 cm^-1, 220-1800 nm)

Tunable near-IR continuous wave diode laser
- Continuous wave diode laser Toptica DLC TA PRO (fwhm of 1 MHz, up to 3 W, 950-990 nm)

Broadband UV-Vis Light Sources
- 150 W Xe-Arc light source with 150 mm focal length monochromator (MLS-150-150, LOT-QuantumDesign)
- 250 W Hg/Xe-Arc light source - Newport 66142 200 W

Cryogenics, vacuum and spectroscopic equipment (modified locally):

Cryogenic System #1 (T = 10-15 K)
- Closed-cycle helium cryostats (APD Cryogenics HC-2 compressor with a DE-202A expander) capable of providing temperatures of 14 K.
- Primary rotative + turbomolecular pump (Alcatel PTM5001), capable to attain a final pressure down to 10−6 mbar.
- Nexus 6700 FTIR spectrometer (Nicolet) operational in Near-IR/Mid-IR ranges with resolution 0.25 cm−1.

Cryogenic System #2 (T = 10-15 K)
- Closed-cycle helium cryostats (APD Cryogenics HC-2 compressor with a DE-202A expander) capable of providing temperatures of 10 K.
- Primary membrane (oil-free) + turbomolecular pump (Varian V70LP), capable to attain a final pressure down to 10−6 mbar)
- Nexus 6700 FTIR spectrometer (Nicolet) operational in Near-IR/Mid-IR/Far-IR ranges with resolution 0.25 cm−1.

Cryogenic System #3 (T = 4 K) (under construction)
- Cryogenic system which includes as main component closed-cycle helium cryostat (Sumitomo RDK 408D2 closed-cycle S3 refrigerator with F-70 compressor unit), capable of providing temperatures down to 4.2 K.
- Primary scroll + turbomolecular pumps (Applied Technologies), capable to attain a final pressure down to 10−6 mbar) hyphenated.
- Nicolet iS50 FTIR-Spectrometer #4,operational in Near-IR and Mid-IR ranges, with resolution 0.09 cm−1.

Cryogenic System #4 (T = 77-300 K)
- Cryogenic system based on liquid nitrogen colling (JANIS Model VPF-100), capable of providing a variable temperature from 77- 300 K.
- Primary rotative (Trivac) + turbomolecular pump (Lebold) capable to attain a final pressure down to 10−5 mbar).
- Nexus 6700 FTIR spectrometer (Nicolet) operational in Mid-IR ranges with resolution 0.25 cm−1.

Other equipment:

- Portable Raman Spectrometer - BWTek i-Raman Pro (model BRC115P) equipped with immersion shaft (RIS100) probe, operational in Mid-IR range with resolution 8 cm−1 (shared with LRSM)
- Thermo Nexus Scientific FTIR Nicolet iS5 operational, with an iD7 ATR accessory (crystal = diamond), operational in Mid-IR ranges with resolution 0.5 cm−1 (shared with LRSM)
- UV-VIS Miniature Fiber Optic Spectrometer for applications (Absorbance, Fluorescence, Reflectance and Transmission) in the UV-Vis region.
- Pulsed pyrolysis systems (1400 C PYROLIZER, IIDF University of Colorado in Boulder) locally modified to allow coupling with cryogenic systems.

Quantum Chemical Calculations:

- Several PCs equiped with software for quantum-chemical calculations: Gaussian16, Orca 5.0 and CFOUR. Graphical program ChemCraft (ver. 1.8).