Study of gas detection based on integrated cavity output spectroscopy

A trace gases detection system based on integrated cavity output spectroscopy (ICOS) was developed, where a NIR tunable diode laser (TDL) was used as light source, an optical cavity composed by two plan-concave mirrors with reflection near 99.7% was used as the absorption cell. Trace water vapour (H₂O), carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), carbon monoxide (CO) and mixture of CO₂ and CO were tested by ICOS based on the characteristics absorption. The wavelength calibration, cavity transmission characteristics, quantitative measurement ability and sensitivity of the TDL-ICOS were also studied, and a evaluated minimum detectable sensitivity of 1.15 × 10^?7 cm^?1 was obtained when the system was used to CH₄ detection. The experiment results show that TDL-ICOS is expected to be a reliable and promising system for the detection of trace gases since it has some advantages such as real-time monitoring, simple device, easy operation, high sensitivity, good stability and quantitative ability.