A silent killer
Air pollution kills 7 million people per year according to the World Health Organization and it constitutes one of the main challenges of our century. Advanced spectroscopic tools for environmental gas sensing that can accurately monitor multiple gases real-time and high-sensitivity is therefore of utmost importance to the world.
The project
The team headed by Associate Professor Christos Markos reported in Nature Communications a novel method of synthesizing multiple narrow optical spectral lines, precisely and independently tuned across the near- to mid-infrared region.
The laser was combined with photoacoustics and the researchers demonstrate the capability of a robust system to monitor multiple gases real-time and with high sensitivity.
The developed system relies upon the emerging gas-filled hollow-core antiresonant fiber technology where the authors are among world-leaders. Two different hollow-core fibers filled with active gases combined in a cascaded configuration generating strong laser pulses targeting carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide.
Application
Such a system can be employed in heavy and shipping industrial settings to monitor harmful and greenhouse emission. This is part of the new EU regulation that has set a target for 2030 of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% compared to levels in 1990.
