Detection of ammonia by photoacoustic spectroscopy with semiconductor lasers.
Sensitive photoacoustic detection of ammonia with near-infrared diode lasers (1.53 microns) and a novel differential acoustic resonator is described; a sensitivity of 0.2 parts per million volume (signal-to-noise ratio = 1) is attained. To eliminate adsorption-desorption processes of the polar NH3 molecules, a relatively high gas flow of 300 SCCM was used for the ammonia-nitrogen mixture. The results are compared with recent ammonia measurements with a NIR diode and absorption spectroscopy used for detection and photoacoustic experiments performed with an infrared quantum-cascade laser. The performance of the much simpler and more compact setup introduced here was comparable with these previous state-of-the-art measurements.
Schmohl
Andreas
A
Institute of Physical Chemistry, University of Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 253, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
Miklós
András
A
Hess
Peter
P