SAFAS QUARTZ GUARANTEE: Measurements you can rely on
If you are shocked by the scandal of the software manipulating emission tests of cars, then you will be very interested by SAFAS Quartz Guarantee... a guarantee of total transparency, and another strong commitment of SAFAS.
Quality UV-Visible spectrophotometers are usually validated on certified and connected liquid standards conforming to Pharmacopoeia. Effectively, the basic tests achieved on solid filters are just testing a few features of the instrument, but not the most important ones, so as corresponding tests are not stringent enough for the demanding Quality Management of Pharmaceutical Indutries, Hospitals, Medical labs, Nuclear plants, Petrochemistry, etc…
These Pharmacopoeia tests are achieved at specific wavelengths, and some of them are very rarely used in the real life of the laboratories ; for example, since decades, the straylight test achieved at 198nm on a KCl solution is critical for many instruments on the market, and reveal optical lacks, due for example to cheap optical components or old fashioned designs, often involving accelerate oldening and losses of energy. Contrary to some preconceived ideas, and to some salesmen arguments, you must conform to this test even in the case that you will never make any analysis at 198nm; this is just because after achieving that test at 198nm (which means : in the most difficult conditions), you can be sure that your optics are OK also for all the other wavelengths. If the test at 198nm is bad, then your optics may be bad at your working wavelength, and your measurement may be wrong.
Other example, the linearity tests of Pharmacopoeia on potassium dichromate, which enable to check the photometric linearity and accuracy at several wavelengths, in the UV as well as in the Visible range.
Already very active in the Pharmaceutical, Medical and Nuclear fields in the 80’s, as well as in many industries where Quality Management was very stringent, our engineers were very surprised to discover on some microprocessor-driven instruments of the market straylight spectra on KCl having physically impossible shapes, and understood that these values could only be generated by a corrective formula entering in force around 198nm… By the way, some models were showing in some cases linearity curves with reversed non-linearity, which is also physically impossible. Some others had systematic hidden smoothing and damping, modifying the effective resolution of the instruments and deforming spectra, but drastically improving stability and noise in the testing conditions of the brochures… This mixture of software-developers ideas to hide optical deficiencies and improve the brochure-features was involving a mixture of drawbacks on measurements, leading to phenomena not-understandable by users, or even impossibilities to achieve some real measurements, like modern shape-analysis techniques.
In accordance with our ethical values, when SAFAS introduced in 1988 the world 1st spectrophotometer 100% PC controlled, which obviously also had a lot of computing power which could enable to hide a lot of corrections and manipulations, SAFAS engineers decided to reject the idea of using any of these tricks, and on the contrary, to create a guarantee on which our customers could rely : our Quartz Guarantee. The Guarantee of a total transparency of our software data processing. The power to rely on any kind of validation test, which results would never be manipulated, and which would always enable to faithfully and trustfully validate the optical quality of our instruments, so as to have accuracy at any wavelength and in any kind of working condition.
We also went beyond : we guarantee that our software is not introducing hidden smoothing or damping, which help to improve the brochure-feature or some stability tests when empty, but which can wreck real measurements.
Thanks to this strong transparency commitment, since 1988, all our customers can trust their results : their validations on certified standards really test their instruments, and prove that their measurements are reliable, at any wavelength and in any kind of real condition. Our features in our brochures are only due to our optical, mechanical and electronic sophistication, as well as to our innovative technologies.
Today, everyone knows that such software-corrections can exist even in the most controlled fields, thanks to the example of the scandals of corrective software in the car industry. Our Quartz Guarantee, active since nearly 3 decades, appears as a fundamental safety for the quality of your results, and for the trustfulness in the validation tests. It is really a major asset when you need quality, safety, accuracy or compliance.
We also advise you to read our commitment to SUSTAINABLE SPECTROSCOPY, another strong commitment of SAFAS for the Quality of your measurements, and your Return On Investment.