Bandwidth of an detector

[shrikant]

Dear All,
How the bandwidth of an UV detector in an HPLC system is determined.(IN Shimadzu and Agilient system.)What can be the most appropriate value of the same and can it be changed?
Anyone with the answer pl. reply back n elaborate the same.

[Rafael Chust]

Bandwidth is directly related to the monocromator used.

Usually it goes from 0.1 to 5 nm bandwidth, depending on manufacturer, age and cost of detector.

I am not familiar with expensive systems, but I assume there are systems allowing you to increase bandwith with your control software.

The idea to increase bandwidth would be less selective and open an window to increase absorbance.

I hope this helps...

[adam]

I have been trying - for years - to find a few good references on the topics of slitwidth and bandwidth: with no luck.

Anyone know of any. Thanks Adam

[John]

Bandwidth is a trade-off between selectivity (narrow) and sensitivity (wide).
Due to UV and VIS spectral peaks being fairly wide, most detectors have a fairly wide default bandwidth where more light throughtput results in a higher S/N ratio. I can't think of any applications where a very narrow bandwidth would be useful in fixed wavelength HPLC detection.
I imagine that linearity of response could suffer if a bandwidth was excessively wide. Please correct me if I am wrong.
J