Background

Two of the most commonly used humidity control methods employed today use either the air/water vapor flow method, or saturated salt method. With the water vapor flow method, the relative humidity (RH) accuracy is usually +/-1% in a humidity range from 0% to 95%. With the saturated salt method, one can obtain a discrete number of humidities depending on the choice of salt. A limitation with these two methods is the requirement of a uniform temperature environment. Even small fluctuations in temperature or an offset in temperature gradient would result in +/- 1-2% error in relative humidity.

Overcoming the present-day limitations on attaining high-precision humidity control, especially for high humidity, promises to open up a new window to imaging research, enabling new experiments which were previously impossible (e.g. X-ray scattering studies of soft materials, bio-mimetic systems and biological systems).

Technology Description

Condensed matter physicists at the University of California, San Diego have developed a method for achieving unprecedented precision and continuous control of the relative humidity environment of a sample chamber suitable for scientific studies (e.g. x-ray diffraction, optical spectroscopy, imaging the structure and dynamics of condensed matter). Specifically, this invention teaches how to build a very precise relative humidity sample chamber for x-ray diffraction, optical spectroscopy, or related imaging studies. The method is especially useful in high humidity (e.g. between 95% to 100% RH), for which existing methods do not work satisfactorily. Accuracy of control is 10-100X better than current methodology. No existing RH method can achieve the same.

Advantages

• Accurate RH control and storage chamber for samples requiring a high degree of stability and accuracy (e.g. biology, biomedical, bioengineering, and materials science).
  
• High resolution control, which yields at least two orders of magnitude improvement in accuracy and decrease in error comparing to existing RH control methods.
• Continuous humidity control ensures stability over the entire RH range. At high humidities (≥ 95%), this technology provides continuous control with super fine resolution of better than 0.01%.
  
• High stability, low maintenance and low cost.

State Of Development

Intellectual Property Info

Other Information

Contact

University of California, San Diego Technology Transfer Office / invent@ucsd.edu / tel: View Phone Number. Please reference Tech ID #22597.

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