“Laboratorio di Astrofisica Sperimentale” (Catania-LASp for short) has been active in Catania starting from the eighties. LASp has developed “in situ” techniques and equipments to analyze the effects of irradiation (ion and/or UV photons) and thermal cycling (down to 10 Kelvin) by Infrared, Raman and UV-VIS-NIR spectroscopy. Analyzed materials in the past includes: frozen gases, solids samples, meteorites.

Over the years, many hundreds of ice mixtures of various compositions and of solids have been studied, producing a wealth of data which may be of use not only for the astronomical community.

A selection of facilities available at LASP:

Ion and UV irradiation center
High Vacuum (better than 10^-7 mbar, or 7.5 10^-8 torr) scattering chamber

Mechanical workshop with updated machinery

Electronic workshop

Computer center

Equipment:

Ion implanter Danfysik 1080, 200kV

UV irradiation system (OPTHOS VUV Lamp 10.2 eV)

Cryocooler (min. operating temperature 10 K)

Spectrometers:

0.8-200 micrometres, Macro-micro, Bruker Equinox

175-3200 nm, UV-VIS-NIR, Perkin-Elmer

Raman, Confocal spectrograph, macro and micro, with triple monochromator Spex 187

Lasers: Ar ions 300 mW; He-Ne 35 mW

Quartz balances

Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer, Balzers

The web site is:

http://web.ct.astro.it/weblab/

The VAMDC website:

http://vamdclasp.oact.inaf.it/GUI/index