Highly accurate determinations of CO2 line strengths using intensity-stabilized diode laser absorption spectrometry

Abstract

An intensity-stabilized laser absorption spectrometer, which incorporates a mirror-extended cavitydiode laser, a temperature-stabilized gas cell, and a Michelson interferometer, was developed and applied to a highly accurate investigation of line intensity factors within the ν 1 + 2 ν 2 0 + ν 3 combination band of carbon dioxide, around 2 μ m wavelength, at a temperature of 296.0 K . This relatively complex apparatus enables one to observe the absorption line shape with high precision and accuracy in such a way that it is possible to retrieve the integrated absorbance with a relative uncertainty better than 0.1%. The absorption spectra were interpolated with the uncorrelated strong-collision model of Rautian and Sobel’man in order to take into account Dicke narrowing effects, thus obtaining an agreement at a level of a few parts per 10 − 5 . We report line strength values for the R ( 2 ) – R ( 18 ) transitions with an unprecedented level of accuracy, in the range between 0.1% and 0.15%. Finally, we discuss the possibility of providing a first experimental test of the theoretical model for molecular line strengths based on the Herman-Wallis expansion.