Tracking energy scale variations from scan to scan in nuclear resonant vibrational spectroscopy: In situ correction using zero-energy position drifts ΔEi rather than making in situ calibration measurements

Jessie Wang, Yoshitaka Yoda, Hongxin Wang
2022 Review of Scientific Instruments  
Nuclear resonant vibrational spectroscopy (NRVS) is an excellent modern vibrational spectroscopy, in particular, for revealing site-specific information inside complicated molecules, such as enzymes. There are two different concepts about the energy calibration for a beamline or a monochromator (including a high resolution monochromator): the absolute energy calibration and the practical energy calibration. While the former pursues an as-fine-as-possible and as-repeatable-as-possible result,
more » ... latter includes the environment influenced variation from scan to scan, which often needs an in situ calibration measurement to track. However, an in situ measurement often shares a weak beam intensity and therefore has a noisy NRVS spectrum at the calibration sample location, not leading to a better energy calibration/correction in most cases. NRVS users for a long time have noticed that there are energy drifts in the vibrational spectra's zero-energy positions from scan to scan ([Formula: see text]Ei), but their trend has not been explored and utilized in the past. In this publication, after providing a brief introduction to the critical issue(s) in practical NRVS energy calibrations, we have evaluated the trend and the mechanism for these zero-energy drifts ([Formula: see text]Ei) and explored their link to the energy scales (αi) from scan to scan. Via detailed analyses, we have established a new stepwise procedure for carrying out practical energy calibrations, which includes the correction for the scan-dependent energy variations using [Formula: see text]Ei values rather than running additional in situ calibration measurements. We also proved that one additional instrument-fixed scaling constant (α0) exists to convert such "calibrated" energy axis (E′) to the real energy axis (Ereal). The "calibrated" real energy axis (Ereal) has a preliminary error bar of ±0.1% (the 2[Formula: see text]E divided by the vibrational energy position), which is 4–8 times better than that from the current practical energy calibration procedure.
doi:10.1063/5.0086332 pmid:36182504 fatcat:7f7x7sbyzja6vkuy7e76zcm7wu