Ppb-level formaldehyde detection system based on a 3.6 µm interband cascade laser and mode-locked cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy with self-calibration of the locking frequency

A mid-infrared formaldehyde (H2CO) detection system was demonstrated using a continuous-wave distributed-feedback interband cascade laser (DFB-ICL) emitting at 3.6 μm as light source and an assembly F-P cavity with 20 m effective optical path length as gas chamber. The laser and the cavity were locked to the H2CO absorption peak simultaneously by an electro-optic modulation based automatic Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) scheme which consist of two steps: dynamic PDH locking and continuous PDH locking. Before continuous PDH locking, the dynamic PDH locking was conducted to acquire the H2CO absorption spectrum and calibration the locking frequency. Then, the cavity transmitted intensity was detected continuously to characterize the gas concentration. H2CO measurements were conducted to evaluate the performance of the sensor system. A linear relationship was observed between the voltage of the absorption signal and the H2CO concentration within the range of 0–6 ppm. Based on Allan deviation analysis, a minimum detection limit of 5.8 ppb was achieved with an averaging time of 30 s.