Remote chemical sensing by laser optical pumping

We are exploring a new approach to remote chemical identification that promises higher precision than can be achieved by conventional DIAL approaches. This technique also addresses and potentially solves the problem of detecting a target gas in the presence of an interfering gas or gases. This new approach utilizes an eye-safe infrared optical pumping pulse to deplete the population of a specific rotational level(s) and then sends probe pulses at the same or different wavelengths to interrogate the bleaching of the absorption. We have experimentally measured optical saturation fluence level at atmospheric pressure for HCl, and find this level to be {approximately}1 mJ/cm{sup 2}, significantly below eye-safe limits in agreement with calculations. Calculations have been performed on other molecules of interest with similar results. In the laboratory, using time-delay-replicated pulses at a single frequency we have made absorption measurements with precision levels routinely approaching 0.1% after averaging 200 laser pulses. These results as well as those of two other pulse experiments will be presented. 5 refs., 9 figs., 1 tab