A faster approach to infrared rheo-optics using a planar array infrared spectrograph.

Infrared rheo-optics combines dynamic mechanical analysis with infrared spectroscopy to provide molecular level information about the segmental reorientation and the changes in local environment associated with the dynamic deformation of polymers. Up to now, the application of this technique has been limited by the amount of time necessary to perform the experiments. In this article, we demonstrate that the use of a planar array infrared (PA-IR) spectrograph can accelerate the acquisition time by as much as two orders of magnitude while maintaining a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) similar to that obtained using step-scan Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrometry, and by more than three orders of magnitude at the expense of a reduced SNR. The advantages and drawbacks of this new technique are discussed.