<title>Characteristics of partial pressure analyzers</title>

Abstract

Partial pressure or residual gas analyzers are often invaluable for materials and contamination studies. However, some instrument design features and combination of operating parameters can cause performance features quite different from what many users expect. These unexpected performance characteristics can include pressure-dependent sensitivities, the sensitivity for one gas depending on the pressures of other gases, and time-dependent sensitivities after operation with gases such as oxygen or water. These characteristics can greatly complicate instrument calibration and can cause errors as large as two orders of magnitude. This paper discusses measured performance characteristics for different partial pressure analyzers that illustrate a wide range of performances from the different instruments, as well as several features that seem to be common to most instruments.© (1993) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.