Our Technology

At the heart of Picomole products is a revolutionary patent-pending platform technology called LISA™, which is an acronym for Laser Infrared Sample Analysis.

In LISA™, a gas or liquid sample is introduced in an optical cavity and probed with a sequence of laser pulses along a well-defined grid of infrared wavelengths.

The optical cavity lengthens the interaction time of the sample with the laser pulse by a thousand-fold or more, dramatically increasing the sensitivity of the technology to trace compounds.

Careful selection of the wavelength grid ensures that accurate quantitation is possible for more than 90% of all volatile compounds of interest.

The net result is that LISA™ is both fast and powerful, permitting sample analysis down to parts-perbillion levels and below within minutes.  Instruments built using LISA™ technology are portable and easy to use.

 LISA™ solves a host of problems that has limited the performance of traditional technologies in analytical chemistry:

• Pre-concentration techniques, which adversely affect accuracy, are not required to detect trace compounds.
• Results are obtained within minutes, instead of hours.
• LISA™ does not require highly trained personnel to operate.
• LISA™ differentiates isomeric compounds without difficulty.
• LISA™-based instruments are wholly self-contained and inherently self-calibrating.
• No need for elaborate and time-consuming pre-conditioning of samples.

Because LISA™ technology is portable and easy to use, it is easily deployed outside of traditional laboratory settings, enabling new applications to be targeted, including:

• Point-of-care disease screening.
• Metabolic wellness profiling.
• Veterinary medicine.
• Law enforcement.
• Workplace drug testing.
• Security inspections.

Picomole Instruments welcomes the opportunity to work with industrial partners to develop commercial products based on LISA™ technology.  For further information, please contact the company directly.