We report on an innovative quartz enhanced photoacoustic (QEPAS) gas sensor operating in the THz spectral range, employing a custom quartz tuning fork (QTF) with the two prongs spaced by ~800 μm. To test our sensor we employed a quantum cascade laser light source and selected a methanol rotational absorption line falling at 131.054 cm-1 (~3.93 THz), with line-strength S = 4.28•10-21 cm. The sensor operated at 10 Torr pressure on the QTF first flexion resonance frequency at 4245 Hz. We achieved a QEPAS normalized noise-equivalent absorption of 2•10-10 W·cm-1•Hz-1/2 comparable with the best result of mid-IR QEPAS systems.
Autori: | |
Titolo: | THz quartz-enhanced photoacoustic sensor employing a quantum cascade laser source |
Data di pubblicazione: | 2014 |
Nome del convegno: | Conference on Quantum Sensing and Nanophotonic Devices XI |
ISBN: | 978-0-8194-9906-6 |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI): | http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.2033620 |
Appare nelle tipologie: | 4.1 Contributo in Atti di convegno |