Abstract
Keywords
optical sensor, gas monitoring, pollution, on-board system, infrared components, narrow-band emitter
Abstract
A sensor based on selective optical absorption allows monitoring of hazardous engine exhaust emissions such as gaseous hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. The IR components presented here offer the potential to develop a compact, fast and selective sensor reaching the technical and cost requirements for on-board automotive applications. Optical gas monitoring requires light sources above 3μm since most of the gas species have their fundamental absorption peaks between 3 and 6 μm. We report here on resonant microcavity light sources emitting at room temperature between 3 and 5μm. The emitter combines a CdxHg1-xTe light emitting heterostructure and two dielectric multilayered mirrors. It is optically pumped by a commercial III-V laser diode. The principle of the resonant microcavity emitter allows tailoring of the emission wavelength and the line width to fit the absorption band of a specific gas, ensuring a very good selectivity between species. Moreover, this kind of emitter allows fast modulation enabling high detectivity and short response time. We report performances of light sources in the range 3-5μm allowing the detection of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. Association of emitters peaking at different characteristic wavelengths with a single broad band detector allows designing of an optical sensor for several gas species. Gas system performances are presented and possible on-board automotive applications are discussed.