Detecting parts-per-billion carbon monoxide with an ultra-enhanced near-infrared photoacoustic sensor

An ultra-enhanced near-infrared (NIR) photoacoustic gas sensor was developed by integrating three enhancing techniques: (a) boosting the excitation power up to 2 W via a custom-built large-mode erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA), (b) exploiting the acoustic resonance amplification of a hyperbolic nonlinear resonator (HNR), and (c) increasing the effective absorption path length by using a near-concentric multipass cavity (MPC) with 20 reflections. A weak CO absorption line at 1566.64 nm with the intensity of 2.074 × 10^-23 cm/molecule was selected. The photoacoustic signal was enhanced 396 times. A minimum detection limit (MDL) of 190 ppb at 10 s was achieved and can be improved to be 11.4 ppb according to the Allan analysis, which was comparable to a mid-infrared (MIR) photoacoustic sensor. The ultra-enhanced NIR photoacoustic sensor is a cost-effective solution for the ppb-level trace gas detection, offering a price that is less than one-third that of MIR photoacoustic sensors.