共焦腔增强的空气拉曼散射

拉曼光谱是一种无损、快速的物质成分分析和检测方法.由于拉曼信号强度微弱,使得拉曼光谱的检测应用受到极大的限制.针对增强拉曼散射信号强度、提高检测灵敏度这一问题,设计了一种用于自发拉曼散射信号增强的共焦腔样品池,开展了基于该共焦腔的空气拉曼散射信号增强研究.共焦腔的腔镜反射率为92%,这一设计在保证共焦腔通带宽度与激光器线宽匹配的同时能有效地降低共振调节难度.实验中采用0°探测构型收集拉曼信号,并由成像式拉曼光谱仪获取光谱信号.实验发现,在共振状态下,共焦腔的耦合效率达到87.5%,单向激光功率实现约11倍放大;与无共振腔相比,共焦腔对拉曼信号实现17倍放大,信噪比提高2倍.此外,空气中CO_2的3σ检测限达到200 ppm量级.结果表明,该系统对自发拉曼散射信号增强效果显著,并且有较高的检测灵敏度.

Confocal-cavity-enhanced Raman scattering of ambient air

Raman spectroscopy is a powerful diagnostic method for gas analysis due to its advantages like non-invasiveness and fast speed. However, its applications are greatly restricted because of the weak signal level caused by small scattering cross section. In order to enhance the Raman signal level and improve the detection sensitivity, a sample cell of confocal cavity is designed and the enhanced Raman signal of ambient air based on this cavity is demonstrated experimentally. The confocal cavity is constructed with a pair of plano-concave reflectors with a curvature radius of 150 mm and reflectivity of 92%. This low reflectivity design not only allows for bandwidth matching with the line-width of excitation laser but also makes the resonant condition satisfied easily. The measured output power of the confocal cavity is over 42 mW in resonant condition, which gives a coupling efficiency of 87.5% when divided with the input power 48 mW. The high coupling efficiency enables the output power efficiently to reach 11 times that for the intra-cavity laser power in one direction. Raman scattering of ambient air is tested to verify the performance of the confocal cavity. In our experiments, the Raman signals are collected in a forward scattering configuration by an imaging Raman spectrometer which is connected to a CCD camera. Strong Raman signals of O₂ and N₂, even H₂O are observed with 1 s exposure time in resonant condition, and rotational lines (O-branch and S-branch) of O₂ and N₂ are also clearly detected when exposure time is set to be 10 s. Compared with the results obtained without confocal cavity, the Raman signal level is enhanced 17 times and the signal-to-noise ratio is improved twice. In addition, a limit of detection (3σ) at a magnitude of 200 ppm for CO₂ in ambient air is achieved for the resonant confocal cavity. These results indicate that the system can significantly enhance the spontaneous Raman scattering signal level and improve the detection sensitivity. Furthermore, the confocal cavity is applicable to the Raman analyses of other gas samples.