Mid-Infrared Trace Gas Sensor Technology Based on Intracavity Quartz-Enhanced Photoacoustic Spectroscopy

Jacek Wojtas; Aleksander Gluszek; Arkadiusz Hudzikowski; Frank K Tittel

doi:10.3390/s17030513

Mid-Infrared Trace Gas Sensor Technology Based on Intracavity Quartz-Enhanced Photoacoustic Spectroscopy

Sensors (Basel). 2017 Mar 4;17(3):513. doi: 10.3390/s17030513.

Authors

Jacek Wojtas¹, Aleksander Gluszek², Arkadiusz Hudzikowski³, Frank K Tittel⁴

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Optoelectronics, Military University of Technology, 00-908 Warsaw, Poland. jacek.wojtas@wat.edu.pl.
² Electronics Faculty, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, 50-370 Wroclaw, Poland. aleksander.gluszek@gmail.com.
³ Electronics Faculty, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, 50-370 Wroclaw, Poland. hudzikowski@gmail.com.
⁴ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005-1892, USA. fkt@rice.edu.

Abstract

The application of compact inexpensive trace gas sensor technology to a mid-infrared nitric oxide (NO) detectoion using intracavity quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (I-QEPAS) is reported. A minimum detection limit of 4.8 ppbv within a 30 ms integration time was demonstrated by using a room-temperature, continuous-wave, distributed-feedback quantum cascade laser (QCL) emitting at 5.263 µm (1900.08 cm^-1) and a new compact design of a high-finesse bow-tie optical cavity with an integrated resonant quartz tuning fork (QTF). The optimum configuration of the bow-tie cavity was simulated using custom software. Measurements were performed with a wavelength modulation scheme (WM) using a 2f detection procedure.

Keywords: I-QEPAS; bow-tie cavity; intracavity quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy; laser absorption spectroscopy; mid-infrared trace gas sensors.