A Novel Compact and Selective Gas Sensing System Based on Microspherical Lasers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a compact gas sensing system utilizing microspherical lasers with wavelength-dependent absorption, achieving selective detection at low concentrations through a multi-channel array configuration.

Contribution

It presents a novel sensor design based on whispering gallery mode microspherical lasers for selective, low-concentration gas detection with a multi-channel array implementation.

Findings

Estimated detection sensitivity of a few ppm.

Demonstrated distinguishable power distributions for different gases.

Proposed a compact 14-channel sensor device.

Abstract

We propose the use of wavelength-dependent spectroscopic absorption in the evanescent field of ultra-compact whispering gallery mode microspherical lasers as selective gas sensors and estimate few ppm detection sensitivity using a simple model. We also propose a sensor configuration based on integrated multi-channel microspherical laser arrays capable of selective gas detection at low concentration, and demonstrate that a compact 14channel device could generate a unique and distinguishable power distribution over channel outputs upon exposure to three different gases.