Time-resolved time-dependent photo-acoustic spectroscopy of NO

Abstract

The paper reports the pulsed laser-based time-resolved time-dependent Photo-acoustic (PA) spectroscopy of NO 2 gas in a specially designed multi mode-Resonant PA Cell which is made of Stainless Steel and has a "Q" value of the order of 79. Furthermore the designed cell allows us to excite some of the longitudinal, radial and azimuthal resonance modes of the photo-acoustic signals simultaneously in a very efficient manner. The presence of many newly excited modes occur at 7050 Hz, 10350 Hz and 14650 Hz frequencies is observed for the first time in NO 2 at room temperature. These results are obtained by employing second harmonics i.e. λ = 532 nm pulses from Q-switched Nd:YAG laser having 7 ns pulse duration. Some of the new acoustic spectrum lines at higher frequencies are recorded between 0.5-10 ms data acquisition time, which also extends the frequency monitoring range of our system. The study also highlights some of the important aspects such as the decaying behavior of some of these resonant acoustic spectrum lines occur on the expense of others as well as the saturation behavior of some other modes in the NO 2 gas sample. The estimated low level detection limit of NO 2 buffered in air is of the order of 17.9 ppbV. © Springer-Verlag 2012.