Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

To detect the density of a measurement component of a sample gas, infrared light is directed alternately through a measuring-light optical system and a reference-light optical system to a heated light sensor. The measuring-light optical system includes a sample cell, a first filter for transmitting infrared rays of a fixed wave-length band, and a temperature compensating cell having a gas which has a part of its absorption wave-length band within the transmission wave-length band of the first filter but has a spectrum different from the spectrum of the measurement component. The reference-light optical system includes a light throttle, an interference cell having a gas containing a fixed density of the measurement component, an adjustable-length interference compensating cell filled with the sample gas, and a second filter for transmitting rays of a wave-length band that includes the major part of the transmission wave-length band of the first filter. The compensating cell is set such that, with temperature fluctuations, variations in absorption by the temperature compensating cell in the wave-length band of the first filter are equal to variations in absorption by the interference cell within the wave-length band of the second filter.