Improved counting statistics of an ultrafine differential mobility particle size spectrometer system

Abstract

Abstract. Differential mobility particle size spectrometers (DMPSs) are widely used to measure the aerosol number size distribution. Especially during new particle formation (NPF), the dynamics of the ultrafine size distribution determine the significance of the newly formed particles within the atmospheric system. A precision quantification of the size distribution and derived quantities such as new particle formation and growth rates is therefore essential. However, size-distribution measurements in the sub-10 nm range suffer from high particle losses and are often derived from only a few counts in the DMPS system, making them subject to very high counting uncertainties. Here we show that a CPC (modified Airmodus A20) with a significantly higher aerosol optics flow rate compared to conventional ultrafine CPCs can greatly enhance the counting statistics in that size range. Using Monte Carlo uncertainty estimates, we show that the uncertainties of the derived formation and growth rates can be reduced from 10 %–20 % down to 1 % by deployment of the high statistics CPC on a strong NPF event day. For weaker events and hence lower number concentrations, the counting statistics can result in a complete breakdown of the growth rate estimate with relative uncertainties as high as 40 %, while the improved DMPS still provides reasonable results at 10 % relative accuracy. In addition, we show that other sources of uncertainty are present in CPC measurements, which might become more important when the uncertainty from the counting statistics is less dominant. Altogether, our study shows that the analysis of NPF events could be greatly improved by the availability of higher counting statistics in the used aerosol detector of DMPS systems.