MTEC Photoacoustics

MTEC Photoacoustics, Inc. was founded in 1984 to provide high performance photoacoustic detector accessories for use in FTIR spectrometers. MTEC's first detector, the model 100, was designed by MTEC's founder, John McClelland who began research in photo acoustics at Iowa State University in 1975. The research was inspired by the work of Allan Rosencwaig, then at Bell Laboratories, who played a key role in renewing interest in Alexander Graham Bell's 1880 discovery of the photoacoustic effect. The MTEC detector won a 1985 R&D Award and rapidly was recognized as the industry standard by both FTIR manufacturers and their customers.

MTEC works closely with Dr. McClelland's research group at the Ames Laboratory, a USDOE national laboratory, which is on the Iowa State University campus. This relationship has been synergistic for the company and the research group leading to advances in the basics of photoacoustic signal generation, in detector performance, and in application of photoacoustic technology to important industrial and USDOE problems. Results of MTEC/Ames Laboratory collaborations are reported regularly at Pittcon, FACSS, EAS, and the biannual international meetings on Fourier transform spectroscopy and photoacoustic spectroscopy. The latter conference was organized by Dr. McClelland in 1979 with the first meeting being held in Ames in August of that year.