June 7, 1999

Dear Peter:

I hope that you had a good trip. Here is an update on our visit to the Raman instrument vendors.

The visits to Instruments SA and InPhotonics gave John Freeman and me a good idea of the capabilities and limitations of the fiber-optic-based Raman instruments that are available from those two companies. The analytical groups at both companies treated us very well and tried very hard to give us the best analyses possible of the numerous liquid and solid samples that we provided.

By far the InPhotonics probe was the better of the two systems. Unlike the ISA probe, the InPhotonics probe is small (about the size of your finger), is immersible, and has incredible throughput (we even saw a STRONG band for sulfate in the seawater sample). Best of all, the lens they use in the probe head has a very long depth of field (few millimeters), which means that you can get a good analysis even if you cannot control the probe at the micrometer scale of manipulation. In contrast, we could not get any decent spectra of opaque materials with the ISA probe, because we could not "eyeball" the exact distance needed for the lens to be in focus; the lens must have a very short depth of field.

John and I were quite excited to see how well the InPhotonics probe worked and how savvy and responsive the applications scientists were there. InPhotonics is a spin-off company from EIC, which seems to be a think-tank analytical company that does much contract work with the government. From my discussions with sales/applications people at the remaining two Raman vendors, Renishaw and Kaiser, as well as from discussions with scientists at the Southwest Research Institute (who are deploying an immersion probe to do Raman spectroscopy of corrosion materials), I think that only the Kaiser Optical Company still is in the running for MBARI's purposes. Thus, I will make arrangements for John and me to fly out to Ann Arbor to visit the Kaiser demonstration lab there, and I will let you and George Malby know the timing as soon as the visit is arranged.

We look forward to working with you and your group. John Freeman thinks that he will be taking a personal trip to an area near Monterey. If so, he will ask if he can stop by and speak with you.

Best regards,

Jill