About Us
OACT – LASP Database
“Laboratorio di Astrofisica Sperimentale” (Catania-LASp for short) has been active in Catania starting from the eighties. LASp has developed “in situ” techniques and equipments to analyze the effects of irradiation (ion and/or UV photons) and thermal cycling (down to 10 Kelvin) by Infrared, Raman and UV-VIS-NIR spectroscopy. Analyzed materials in the past includes: frozen gases, solids samples, meteorites.
Over the years, many hundreds of ice mixtures of various compositions and of solids have been studied, producing a wealth of data which may be of use not only for the astronomical community.
A selection of facilities available at LASP:
Ion and UV irradiation center
High Vacuum (better than 10-7 mbar, or 7.5 10-8 torr) scattering chamber
Mechanical workshop with updated machinery
Electronic workshop
Computer center
Equipment:
Ion implanter Danfysik 1080, 200kV
UV irradiation system (OPTHOS VUV Lamp 10.2 eV)
Cryocooler (min. operating temperature 10 K)
Spectrometers:
0.8-200 micrometres, Macro-micro, Bruker Equinox
175-3200 nm, UV-VIS-NIR, Perkin-Elmer
Raman, Confocal spectrograph, macro and micro, with triple monochromator Spex 187
Lasers: Ar ions 300 mW; He-Ne 35 mW
Quartz balances
Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer, Balzers
The web site is:
http://web.ct.astro.it/weblab/
The VAMDC website:
Contact-
Manager: Giuseppe Leto (gle[at]oact.inaf.it)