Phase Optimized Photoacoustic Sensing of Gas Mixtures

In this paper, we report on the progress of the auto-triggered quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (QEPAS) technique which operates without external frequency generators and ensures permanent locking to the current resonance frequency of the tuning fork. This is obtained by incorporating the tuning fork in an oscillator circuit that autonomously oscillates at the present resonance frequency that shifts with changing environmental conditions, e.g., density and viscosity of the surrounding gas, temperature, and pressure. Both, the oscillation amplitude as well as the frequency can be read from the oscillator circuit. The photoacoustic signal appears as an offset of the electrically induced signal amplitude. Since the sum amplitude depends on the phase relation between the electrical and photoacoustic driving forces, the phase is permanently modulated, enabling the extraction of the photoacoustic component by use of a second lock-in amplifier stage which is being referenced with the phase modulation frequency. The functionality of this method is demonstrated for methane detection in a carbon dioxide atmosphere in a concentration range from 0 to 100% and ammonia in synthetic air employing a pulsed mid infrared QCL around 1280 cm−1. The gas mixtures are motivated by the demands in biogas-analysis.