Silicon-Cantilever-Enhanced Single-Fiber Photoacoustic Acetylene Gas Sensor

Abstract

A single-fiber photoacoustic (PA) sensor with a silicon cantilever beam for trace acetylene (C2H2) gas analysis was proposed. The miniature gas sensor mainly consisted of a microcantilever and a non-resonant PA cell for the real-time detection of acetylene gas. The gas diffused into the photoacoustic cell through the silicon cantilever beam gap. The volume of the PA cell in the sensor was about 14 μL. By using a 1 × 2 fiber optical coupler, a 1532.8 nm distributed feedback (DFB) laser and a white light interference demodulation module were connected to the single-fiber photoacoustic sensor. A silicon cantilever was utilized to improve the performance when detecting the PA signal. To eliminate the interference of the laser-reflected light, a part of the Fabry–Perot (F-P) interference spectrum was used for phase demodulation to achieve the highly sensitive detection of acetylene gas. The minimum detection limit (MDL) achieved was 0.2 ppm with 100 s averaging time. In addition, the calculated normalized noise equivalent absorption (NNEA) coefficient was 4.4 × 10−9 W·cm−1·Hz−1/2. The single-fiber photoacoustic sensor designed has great application prospects in the early warning of transformer faults.

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