Laser absorption spectroscopy based on a broadband external cavity quantum cascade laser

A tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) system based on a broad band external cavity quantum cascade laser (ECQCL) near 7.78 μm was used to study volatile organic compounds (VOCs) measurements. Instead of using a standard infrared mercury cadmium telluride (MCT) detector, a quartz crystal tuning fork (QCTF) as a light detector was successfully used for laser signal detection. Fast Fourier transform (FFT) was used to extract vibration intensity information of QCTF. Primary results indicate that the new developed system has a good reproducibility, and a good agreement was obtained by comparing with data taken from standard spectroscopic database.