DFB LASERS AT WAVELENGHTS IN EXCESS OF 2300 NM FOR REMOTE GAS SENSING

摘要

Remote gas sensing for atmospheric and environmental studies using single mode emitting semiconductor lasers, e.g. in LIDAR applications has gained wide interest in the last few years. This technique has been brought to sophisticated sensitivity levels and nowadays detection limits are in the range of a few ppb. However, up until recently only semiconductor laser diode sources with wavelengths below 2.3 μm have been available, which inherently limits the detection sensitivity due to the fact that the fundamental absorption band of many gases lies in the spectral range beyond 2.3 μm. With novel distributed feedback laser diodes at wavelengths up to 2.9 μm higher detection sensitivities as compared to currently available laser based sensors are possible.