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Title: Remote chemical sensing by laser optical pumping

Conference ·
OSTI ID:492288
;  [1]
  1. Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)

The authors are exploring a new approach to remote chemical identification that promises higher precision than can be achieved by conventional DIAL approaches. This technique also addresses and potentially solves the problem of detecting a target gas in the presence of an interfering gas or gases. This new approach utilizes an eye-safe infrared optical pumping pulse to deplete the population of a specific rotational level(s) and then sends probe pulses at the same or different wavelengths to interrogate the bleaching of the absorption. The authors have experimentally measured optical saturation fluence level at atmospheric pressure for HCL, and find this level to all be {approximately}1 mJ/cm{sup 2}, significantly below eye-safe limits in agreement with similar results. In the laboratory, using time delay replicated pulses at a single frequency the authors have made absorption measurements with precision levels routinely approaching 0.1% on averaging 200 laser pulses. These results as well as those of two other pulse experiments will be presented.

DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-48
OSTI ID:
492288
Report Number(s):
CONF-960848-; ISBN 0-8194-2221-5; TRN: IM9730%%167
Resource Relation:
Conference: Denver `96: 1. conference on space processing of materials, at SPIE International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) annual international symposium on optical science, engineering, and instrumentation, Denver, CO (United States), 4-9 Aug 1996; Other Information: PBD: 1996; Related Information: Is Part Of Application of lidar to current atmospheric topics; Sedlacek, A.J. III [ed.] [Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (United States). Dept. of Advanced Technology]; PB: 270 p.; SPIE proceedings series, Volume 2833
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English