All-optical photoacoustic detection of SF6 decomposition component SO2 based on fiber-coupled UV-LED

Abstract

An all-optical photoacoustic sensor for measuring the concentration of SF6 decomposition derivative SO2 was designed, whose detection limit was in the order of ppb-level. An UV-fiber and a single-mode fiber were utilized to transmit excitation light and probe light, respectively. The technical scheme of all-optical gas sensing has realized the competitive advantages of long-distance detection and anti-electromagnetic interference. As an UV-LED was the excitation light, the challenge of designing all-optical SO2 sensor was to effectively couple UV-LED with large divergence angle into an UV- fiber. Theoretical calculation and experiment have proved that the lens assembly as an effective strategy to realize the efficient coupling and beam collimation, which can achieve high excitation power and low solid photoacoustic background interference. The lens assembly with high focusing property was the key to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by 5.2 times. To detect photoacoustic pressure with high sensitivity, a fiber optic cantilever acoustic sensor based on F-P interference was designed. Based on the demodulation algorithm of white light interference, dynamic cavity length of F-P was demodulated with high-resolution. Allan-Werle analysis result indicate that the detection limit of SO2 gas was 48 ppb with an averaging time of 100 s