Abstract

Here we report a novel, to the best of our knowledge, method of active intracavity intensity modulation for cavity-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (PAS) without the need for any external optical modulators. Based on the Pound–Drever–Hall (PDH) locking technique, a dither is added to the PDH error signal to periodically vary the locking point between the laser frequency and optical cavity within a sub-MHz frequency range. While significantly enhancing the intracavity laser intensity, the optical cavity also acts as an intensity modulator. As a proof-of-principle, we demonstrated the PAS of ${{\rm C}_2}{{\rm H}_2}$ by placing a photoacoustic cell ($Q$-factor $\sim{10}$) inside a Fabry–Perot cavity (finesse $\sim{628}$) and adopting the proposed intracavity intensity modulation scheme. By detecting the weak ${{\rm C}_2}{{\rm H}_2}$ line at ${6412.73}\;{{\rm cm}^{ - 1}}$, the sensor achieves a normalized noise equivalent absorption (NNEA) coefficient of ${1.5} \times {{10}^{ - 11}}\;{{\rm cm}^{ - 1}}{{\rm WHz}^{ - 1/2}}$. This method enables the continuous locking of laser frequency and optical cavity, and it achieves the intracavity intensity modulation with an adjustable modulation depth as well.

© 2020 Optical Society of America

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