Wavelength modulation spectroscopy by employing the first harmonic phase angle method.

Wavelength modulation spectroscopy (WMS), widely employed in tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS), has been accomplished by employing the first harmonic phase angle (1f-PA) method that is immune to the laser intensity and the demodulation phase. The principle of the 1f-PA method has been demonstrated by the phasor decomposition method, which indicates that the 1f-PA is linearly proportional to the integral absorption in the approximation of weak absorption. Validation experiments have been performed to investigate the relationship between the 1f-PA and the modulation amplitude/frequency by measuring the absorption line of CO2 around 6362.5 cm-1. The peak-to-peak value of the 1f-PA decreases with the increasing of the modulation amplitude, and is particularly apparent under small modulation amplitudes and high modulation frequencies. The 1f-PA shows good linearity with the increasing of the CO2 concentration. Comparing with the traditional first harmonic normalized second harmonic (2f/1f) method, higher detection sensitivities can be achieved at high modulation frequencies. The promising results imply that the 1f-PA method has a great potential in the applications of the WMS technique especially under high modulation frequencies or modulation-amplitude limited conditions, such as strong turbulence or high pressure environments.