Frequency-Division-Multiplexed Multicomponent Gas Sensing with Photothermal Spectroscopy and a Single NIR/MIR Fiber-Optic Gas Cell

Abstract

We report a multicomponent gas sensor based on hollow-core fiber (HCF) photothermal spectroscopy with frequency-division multiplexing (FDM). A single antiresonant HCF (AR-HCF) is used as the gas cell, which supports broadband transmission from near-infrared (NIR) to mid-infrared (MIR), covering the absorption lines of water vapor (H₂O) at 1.39 μm, carbon dioxide (CO₂) at 2.00 μm, and carbon monoxide (CO) at 4.60 μm. The NIR and MIR pump lasers at the above wavelengths are coupled into the AR-HCF from the opposite ends and modulated at 7.5, 8.0, and 8.5 kHz, respectively, to produce photothermal phase modulations at different frequencies. A common probe Fabry-Perot interferometer at 1.55 μm is adopted to detect the phase modulations, which are demodulated simultaneously using three lock-in amplifiers at the respective second harmonic frequencies. With a 13-cm-long AR-HCF, simultaneous detections of H₂O, CO₂, and CO are demonstrated with the limits of detection (LODs) of 2.7 ppm, 25 ppb, and 9 ppb for 1 s lock-in time constant, respectively. The LODs go down to 222, 1.5, and 0.6 ppb, respectively, for 1000 s averaging time. The photothermal signals of CO and CO₂, which are humidity-level dependent, are well calibrated by use of the measured H₂O signal. The multicomponent gas sensor is compact in configuration and shows good stability with signal fluctuation less than 1.7% over 2 h.