A commercially available spectrometer will help scientists devote more time to research.

At least, that’s the hope of Martin Zanni, a professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, whose company PhaseTech is making the high-speed instrument.

“It’s more efficient for a working scientist to buy a spectrometer rather than devote the time and money to perfecting a home-made instrument,” Zanni said in a release. “We’ll allow researchers to buy a full-blown spectrometer that they can start using the day it’s installed.”

Zanni has used the spectrometer, which analyzes the interaction between a sample and beams of light, to study diabetes.

Although pricing has yet to be determined, Zanni estimates the spectrometer will cost will be “somewhere between a Ford and a Ferrari.”

For his efforts, Zanni won the 2011 National Academy of Sciences award for Initiatives in Research.