Parts-per-billion-level detection of hydrogen sulfide based on doubly resonant photoacoustic spectroscopy with line-locking

Photoacoustics. 2022 Dec 9:29:100436. doi: 10.1016/j.pacs.2022.100436. eCollection 2023 Feb.

Abstract

We report on the development of a highly sensitive hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas sensor exploiting the doubly resonant photoacoustic spectroscopy technique and using a near-infrared laser emitting at 1578.128 nm. By targeting the R(4) transition of H2S, we achieved a minimum detection limit of 10 part per billion in concentration and a normalized noise equivalent absorption coefficient of 8.9 × 10-12 W cm-1 Hz-1/2. A laser-cavity-molecule locking strategy is proposed to enhance the sensor stability for fast measurement when dealing with external disturbances. A comparison among the state-of-the-art H2S sensors using various spectroscopic techniques confirmed the record sensitivity achieved in this work.

Keywords: Cavity-enhanced spectroscopy; Hydrogen sulfide; Molecular absorption line locking; Photoacoustic spectroscopy; Trace gas detection.