Mid-infrared heterodyne phase-sensitive dispersion spectroscopy in flame measurements

Abstract

We present the first demonstration of heterodyne phase-sensitive dispersion spectroscopy (HPSDS) for in situ, non-intrusive and quantitative CO2 concentration measurements in flames. Dispersion spectroscopy retrieves gas properties by measuring the refractive index in the vicinity of a molecular resonance. The HPSDS scheme features a significant diagnostic advantage of the intrinsic immunity to laser power fluctuations caused by beam steering, thermal radiation and soot scattering in combustion environments, and thus no extra calibration process is required. In this work, we described the spectroscopic fundamentals for measuring heterodyne phase signals in flames. As a proof of principle, we used a mid-infrared interband cascade laser (ICL) near 4183 nm to exploit the strong CO2 transitions in the R-branch of the v3 fundamental band. The HPSDS signals of four CO2 lines, R(76), R(78), R(80) and R(82), were measured in CH4/air flames to obtain CO2 concentrations at different equivalence ratios (Φ = 0.8–1.2), yielding a good agreement with the simultaneous laser absorption measurements using the same ICL. With its immunity to laser power fluctuations verified experimentally, the HPSDS sensor was successfully implemented to measure CO2 concentrations in C2H4/air sooting flames (Φ = 1.78–2.38). Laser dispersion spectroscopy proves to be a promising and alternative diagnostic tool for combustion measurements.