Open-closed single-tube on-beam tuning-fork-enhanced fiber-optic photoacoustic spectroscopy

A proof-of-concept on-beam tuning-fork-enhanced photoacoustic sensor based on an open-closed single-tube acoustic-microresonator (AmR) was proposed and investigated for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. Due to the high acoustic amplification effect, the open-closed AmR improved the detection sensitivity by 54 times with respect to the bare tuning fork (TF). Compared to traditional dual-tube/single-tube on-beam spectrophone configuration, the developed approach significantly facilitates the laser beam alignment and reduces the sensor size and gas consumption. A 6.6 kHz low-frequency custom aluminum alloy TF was employed as the acoustic transducer to detect the photoacoustic signal. The vibration of TF was measured by a fiber-optic Fabry-Pérot (FP) interferometer (FPI). The modulation depth, tube length and laser power were experimentally optimized and evaluated in detail. An acetylene (C2H2) 1σ minimum detection limit (MDL) of 6.3 ppb was obtained with a high laser power of ∼ 500 mW, corresponding to a normalized noise equivalent absorption (NNEA) coefficient of 6.5 × 10−9 cm−1 W/Hz1/2. The compact spectrophone size and all-fiber measurement method can make the PAS-based sensor have great application prospects in dissolved gases detection in transformer oil, remote gas detection, space-limited gas detection, and etc.