Abstract
The development of compact all-solid-state CW tunable mid-infrared sensors based on difference-frequency generation (DFG) and their application to environmental sensing will be described. To be useful for atmospheric trace gas detection, such sensors must meet two main requirements. First they must be sufficiently sensitive to detect species under consideration at their ambient concentration levels, which can be below one part per billion (ppb) for some substances. Second, it is important that they be reliable and provide long-term measurement stability in unattended operation. Further desirable properties include operation at room temperature, real-time detection, low power consumption, simplicity of design, small size, portability, and cost-effectiveness. Recent advances in III-V semiconductor lasers and the availability of new infrared nonlinear optical materials provide the enabling technology to perform sensitive and selective IR spectroscopic gas detection in air in the 3 to 18 pm wavelength range. This range contains strong fundamental molecular absorption bands of many organic and inorganic air pollutants.
© 1996 Optical Society of America
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