Automatic Spectral Database and Archive System for Optical Spectroscopy

Abstract

With the advent of computerized data acquisition in spectroscopy, it has become possible to acquire large quantities of data with relative ease. Without a convenient method for archiving and accessing the data at a later date, a number of the capabilities inherent in these systems are unrealized. We have developed a generalized archival system which automatically archives all raw data and generates a rapidly searchable database of text information and spectral data for all spectroscopic results covering the spectral regions from 30 nm to 1000 µun (3.3 × 105 to 10 cm−1). The system executes on a local area network (LAN) of personal computers and consists of a customized file-naming and comment convention that organizes data by research notebooks, an integrated data backup routine, and a spectral database system. The data backup and spectral database consist of two programs: (1) a DOS level copy routine to back up the system and data to an optical write once/read many (WORM) drive, and (2) a spectral database program written in the Lab Calc spectroscopy environment. Stored with each spectral library entry are searchable text fields of character data parsed from a standardized comment line which is entered prior to data acquisition. This system is used consistently with three different spectrophotometers, allowing all results to be treated equivalently for further numerical analysis.