Highly sensitive methane detection based on light-induced thermoelastic spectroscopy with a 2.33 μm diode laser and adaptive Savitzky-Golay filtering

In this manuscript, a highly sensitive methane (CH4) sensor based on light-induced thermoelastic spectroscopy (LITES) using a 2.33 mu m diode laser with high power is demonstrated for the first time. A quartz tuning fork (QTF) with an intrinsic resonance frequency of 32.768 kHz was used to detect the light-induced thermoelastic signal. A Herriot multi-pass cell with an effective optical path of 10 m was adopted to increase the laser absorption. The laser wavelength modulation depth and concentration response of this CH4-LITES sensor were investigated. The sensor showed excellent long term stability when Allan deviation analysis was performed. An adaptive Savitzky-Golay (S-G) filtering algorithm with chi(2) statistical criterion was firstly introduced to the LITES technique. The SNR of this CH4-LITES sensor was improved by a factor of 2.35 and the minimum detection limit (MDL) with an integration time of 0.1 s was optimized to 0.5 ppm. This reported CH4-LITES sensor with sub ppm-level detection ability is of great value in applications such as environmental monitoring and industrial safety. (C) 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

In this manuscript, a highly sensitive methane sensor based on light-induced thermoelastic spectroscopy (LITES) using a high-power 2.33 μm diode laser is demonstrated for the first time. The sensor shows long-term stability and sub ppm-level detection ability, making it valuable for applications such as environmental monitoring and industrial safety.