Sensitive Spectroscopy of Acetone Using a Widely Tunable External-Cavity Quantum Cascade Laser.

We employed a single-mode, widely tunable (~300 cm) external-cavity quantum cascade laser operating around 8 µm for broadband direct absorption spectroscopy and wavelength modulation spectroscopy where a modulation frequency of 50 kHz was employed with high modulation amplitudes of up to 10 GHz. Using a compact multipass cell, we measured the entire molecular absorption band of acetone at ~7.4 µm with a spectral resolution of ~1 cm. In addition, to demonstrate the high modulation dynamic range of the laser, we performed direct absorption (DAS) and second harmonic wavelength modulation spectroscopy (WMS-2f) of the Q-branch peak of acetone molecular absorption band (HWHM ~10 GHz) near 1365 cm. With WMS-2f, a minimum detection limit of 15 ppbv in less than 10 s is achieved, which yields a noise equivalent absorption sensitivity of 1.9 × 10 cm Hz.