Coherent control in quartz-enhanced photoacoustics: fingerprinting a trace gas at ppm-level within seconds

Quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (QEPAS) has become a versatile tool for detection of trace gases at extremely low concentrations, leveraging the high quality (Q)-factor of quartz tuning forks. However, this high Q-factor imposes an intrinsic spectral resolution limit for fast wavelength sweeping with tunable laser sources due to the long ringing time of the tuning fork. Here, we introduce a technique to coherently control and damp the tuning fork by phase-shifting the modulation sequences of the driving laser. Particularly, we send additional laser pulses into the photoacoustic cell with a timing that corresponds to a π phase shift with respect to the tuning fork oscillation, effectively stopping its oscillatory motion. This enables acquisition of a complete methane spectrum spanning 3050–3450 nm in just three seconds, preserving the spectral shape. Our measured data is in good agreement with the theoretically expected spectra from the HITRAN database when convolved with the laser linewidth of . This will leverage the use of QEPAS with fast-sweeping OPOs in real-world gas sensing applications beyond laboratory environments with extremely fast acquisition speed enabled by our coherent control scheme.