The paper describes a conception of an instrument for remote detector of carbon monoxide in free atmosphere which utilizes differential absorption of optical radiation. The CO molecule strongly absorbs in the band centered at 4.7 micrometers . The goal of the present effort is to build an instrument capable to detect both low and high concentrations of CO. The key problem is that absorption of CO, for a length of measuring path greater than 200 m, is saturated even at non-lethal concentration. In this case it is not possible to use the simplest concentration of an optical remote detector and it is necessary to measure absorption spectrum of the atmosphere, at least in the region from 4.4 micrometers to 5.0 micrometers .

Date Published: 7 March 2001
PDF: 5 pages
Proc. SPIE 4356, 12th Czech-Slovak-Polish Optical Conference on Wave and Quantum Aspects of Contemporary Optics, (7 March 2001); doi: 10.1117/12.417853

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4356:
12th Czech-Slovak-Polish Optical Conference on Wave and Quantum Aspects of Contemporary Optics
Jan Perina Sr.; Miroslav Hrabovsky; Jaromir Krepelka, Editor(s)