Dual interband cascade laser based trace-gas sensor for environmental monitoring

The development of an interband cascade laser (ICL) based spectroscopic trace-gas sensor for the simultaneous detection of two atmospheric trace gases is reported. The sensor performance was evaluated using two ICLs capable of targeting formaldehyde (H2CO) and ethane (C2H6). Minimum detection limits of 3.5 ppbV for H2CO and 150 pptV for C2H6 was demonstrated with a 1 s integration time. The sensor was deployed for field measurements of H2CO, and laboratory quantification of both formaldehyde and ethane are reported. A cross comparison of the atmospheric concentration data for H2CO with data collected by a collocated commercial H2CO sensor employing Hantzsch reaction based fluorometric detection was performed. These results show excellent agreement between these two different approaches for trace-gas quantification. In addition, laboratory experiments for dual gas quantification show accurate, fast response with no crosstalk between the two gas channels.