Frequency-locked cavity ring-down Faraday rotation spectroscopy

Abstract

Cavity ring-down Faraday rotation spectroscopy (CRD-FRS) is a technique for trace gas measurements of paramagnetic species that retrieves the molecular concentration from the polarization rotation measured as the difference between simultaneously recorded ring-down times of two orthogonal polarization states. The differential measurement is inherently insensitive to nonabsorber related losses, which makes off-resonance measurements redundant. We exploit this unique property by actively line-locking to a molecular transition for calibration-free trace gas concentration retrieval. In addition, we enhance the effective duty-cycle of the system by implementing a Pound-Drever-Hall laser lock to the cavity resonance, which allows for ring-down rates of up to 9 kHz. The system performance is demonstrated by measurements of trace oxygen with a minimum detection limit at the ppmv/√Hz-level.