title: High finesse optical cavity coupled with a quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopic sensor.
abstract: An ultra-sensitive and selective quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (QEPAS) combined with a high-finesse cavity sensor platform is proposed as a novel method for trace gas sensing. We call this technique Intra-cavity QEPAS (I-QEPAS). In the proposed scheme, a single-mode continuous wave quantum cascade laser (QCL) is coupled into a bow-tie optical cavity. The cavity is locked to the QCL emission frequency by means of a feedback-locking loop that acts directly on a piezoelectric actuator mounted behind one of the cavity mirrors. A power enhancement factor of ∼240 was achieved, corresponding to an intracavity power of ∼0.72 W. CO2 was selected as the target gas to validate our sensor. For the P(42) CO2 absorption line, located at 2311.105 cm(-1), a minimum detection limit of 300 parts per trillion by volume at a total gas pressure of 50 mbar was achieved with a 20 s integration time. This corresponds to a normalized noise equivalent absorption of 3.2 × 10(-10) W cm(-1) Hz(-1/2), comparable with the best results reported for the QEPAS technique on much faster relaxing gases. A comparison with standard QEPAS performed under the same experimental conditions confirms that the I-QEPAS sensitivity scales with the intracavity laser power enhancement factor.
authors.affiliation: CNR-IFN UOS Bari and Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica, Università e Politecnico di Bari, via Amendola 173, 70126 Bari, Italy. vincenzoluigi.spagnolo@poliba.it.
authors.forename: Pietro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Patimisco
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Borri
authors.forename: Iacopo
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Galli
authors.forename: Davide
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mazzotti
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Giusfredi
authors.forename: Naota
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Akikusa
authors.forename: Masamichi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yamanishi
authors.forename: Gaetano
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Scamarcio
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: De Natale
authors.forename: Vincenzo
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Spagnolo