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Novel detection of aerosols: combined cavity ring-down and fluorescence spectroscopy

Literature Reference
Peer Reviewed Literature
Authors

Bruce A. Richman, Alexander A. Kachanov, Barbara A. Paldus, and Anthony W. Strawa

Presented at

Optics Express 13, 9, pp. 3376-3387 May 2, 2005 Optics Express

Abstract

High fluences inside cavity ring-down spectroscopy optical resonators lend themselves to fluorescence or Raman spectroscopy. An instrument at 488 nm was developed to measure extinction, and fluorescence of aerosols. A detection limit of 6 x 10^-9 cm^-1Hz^-1/2 (0.6 Mm^-1Hz^-1/2) was achieved. The fluorescence spectral power collected from a single fluorescent microsphere was 10 to 20 pW/nm. This power is sufficient to obtain the spectrum of a single microsphere with a resolution of 10 nm and signal-to-noise ratio of ~10. The relative concentrations of two types of fluorescent microspheres were determined from a time-integrated fluorescence measurement of a mixture of both.