Kompaktne vaakummonokromaator TMC-4

Abstract

Compact Vacuum Monochromator TMC-4
Valdur Tiit

At the end of the Soviet times, one of the strongest centres for developing
and producing spectroscopic devices in the Soviet Union was
located in Tartu. A vacuum monochromator developed by the physicists
and engineers of Tartu was given to the University museum
in the summer of 2014 by the University of Tartu Institute of Physics
Gas Discharge Laboratory.
Constructing a short wavelength ultraviolet radiation vacuum
monochromator was connected to producing radiation sensors that
were, among other things, needed in space instruments. There were
only a couple of such instruments in the Soviet Union and Estonian
engineers constructed such a device themselves in 1964. The world’s
first vacuum monochromator TVM-3 with double reflection diffraction
gratings was constructed in Tartu in 1967. During the following
years, many more similar instruments were constructed and one of
the versions was also patented in the USA and France.
Using modern diffraction gratings with variable spacing constructed
in the Optical Institute of USSR in Leningrad, small very compact
vacuum monochromators TMC-03 (for the Moscow State University)
and TMC-04 (remained in Tartu and is in the museum now)
were constructed in Tartu in 1989–1990. They mainly function in the
spectral range of 100–250 nm, where the resolving power is about
0.05 nm, the source of radiation is a high voltage gas-discharge tube
working either on helium or hydrogen.
The vacuum monochromator TMC-04 was used in the University
of Tartu Institute of Physics for the first time in the world for researching
the influence of high and extra high pressure on the optical
spectrum of crystals. After the Department of Equipment Development
(APES) was closed down in the spring of 1993, the vacuum monochromator
TMC-04 was used at the Estonian University of Life
Sciences environmental equipment laboratory for studying the transparency of the windows of ionization chambers.