Diagnosis of multiple gases using a multi-pass ring cavity to enhance Raman scattering

Spontaneous Raman scattering is widely used to enable simultaneous concentration measurements of all relevant species with overcomes whose signal is weak and susceptible to fluorescence interference. A multi-pass ring-cavity scheme is proposed to enhance Raman scattering signal. The Raman spectra of CO2, N2, O2 and H2O in the air are acquired under condition of low excitation power which is 200 mW laser of 532 nm. Compared with the results obtained by single collection without ring cavity, the Raman signal level is enhanced 40 times and the signal-to-noise ratio is improved by 43 times at maximum. Power of pump is taken into consideration to analyze its impact on signal. A limit of detection (3σ criterion standard) of 83 ppm for CO2 is calculated for the multi-pass ring-cavity. The limit of detection of 14 ppm for CH4 is also estimated by the theoretical ratio of cross section values of CO2 and CH4. When power of excitation is low, high level of signal of multi-species gases is acquired with fine detection sensitivity through ring cavity.