Calibration of effective optical path length for hollow-waveguide based gas cell using absorption spectroscopy

Abstract

The Hollow Waveguide (HWG) has emerged as a novel tool to transmit laser power. Owing to its long Effective Optical Path Length (EOPL) within a relatively small volume, it is suitable for the application as a gas cell in concentration measurement by using laser spectroscopy. The measurement of effective optical path length for a hollow waveguide, which possesses the physical length of 284.0 cm, by using Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy (TDLAS) was demonstrated. Carbon dioxide was used as a sample gas for a hollow waveguide calibration. A 2004 nm Distributed Feed-Back (DFB) laser was used as the light source to cover a CO2 line near 2003 nm, which was selected as the target line in the measurement. The reference direct absorption spectroscopy signal was obtained by delivering CO2 into a reference cell possessing a length of 29.4 cm. Then the effective optical path length of HWG was calculated by least-squares fitting the measured absorption signal to the reference absorption signal. The measured EOPL of HWG was 282.8 cm and the repeatability error of effective optical path length was calculated as 0.08 cm. A detection limit of 0.057 cm (with integral time 5 s) characterized by the Allan variance, was derived. The effective optical path length is obtained as the significant parameter to calculate the concentration of gases and it is of great importance to precise measurement of absorption spectroscopy.