COMPARISON OF SINGLE AND DUAL-PHASE LOCK-IN AMPLIFIERS FOR PHOTOACOUSTIC SPECTROSCOPY

Dual phase lock-in is usually used in photoacoustic research because it allows precise projection of the measured spectra. In this article, double and single phase lock-in amplifiers were used and the advantages and disadvantages of both were compared. Two liquid crystals were studied in this work: ethylo- and penthylo-cyanobiphenyl in cyclohexane, tetrahydrofuran, and acetonitrile. The red-shift of the maximum related to the polarity of solvents and a bigger shift for 4-penthylo-4′-cyanobiphenyl relative to 4-ethylo-4′-cyanobiphenyl were observed. In order to investigate the usefulness of the single-phase device, compared to the more expensive double-phase device, the frequency dependence measurements and photoacoustic spectra were recorded and compared. Small differences were observed (within the limit of error) in spectra obtained using the single and the double lock-in amplifier. The simpler single-phase lock-in device can be used to reliably measure frequency spectra without any loss of information.