Ultra-wide-dynamic-range gas sensing by optical pathlength multiplexed absorption spectroscopy

Laser absorption spectroscopy (LAS) has become the most widely used laser spectroscopic technique for gas detection due to its capability of accurate quantification and straightforward operation. However, since resolving weak absorption and averting over-absorption are always mutually exclusive, the dynamic range of the LAS-based gas sensor is limited and insufficient for many applications in fundamental study and industry. To overcome the limitation on the dynamic range, this article reports optical pathlength (OPL) multiplexed absorption spectroscopy using a gas cell having multiple internal reflections. It organically fuses together the transmission and reflection operation modes: the former directly uses the entire OPL of the gas cell, while the latter interrogates different internal short OPLs by optical interferometry, yielding >100-fold OPL variation. The achieved dynamic range is more than 6 orders of magnitude that surpasses other LAS techniques by 2–3 orders of magnitude. The proposed method promotes a novel way for the development of large-dynamic-range spectroscopic gas sensors for fundamental studies and industrial applications.