Application of near-infrared optical feedback cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (OF-CEAS) to the detection of ammonia in exhaled human breath

Abstract

The qualitative and quantitative analysis to trace gas in exhaled human breath has become a promising technique in biomedical applications such as disease diagnosis and health status monitoring. This paper describes an application of a high spectral resolution optical feedback cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (OF-CEAS) for ammonia detection in exhaled human breath, and the main interference of gases such as CO2 and H2O are approximately eliminated at the same time. With appropriate optical feedback, a fibered distributed feedback (DFB) diode laser emitting at 1531.6 nm is locked to the resonance of a V-shaped cavity with a free spectral range (FSR) of 300 MHz and a finesse of 14,610. A minimum detectable absorption coefficient of αmin = 2.3 × 10-9 cm-1 is achieved in a single scan within 5 s, yielding a detection limit of 17 ppb for NH3 in breath gas at low pressure, and this stable system allows the detection limit down to 4.5 ppb when the spectra to be averaged over 16 laser scans. Different from typical CEAS with a static cavity, which is limited by the FSR in frequency space, the attainable spectral resolution of our experimental setup can be up to 0.002 cm-1 owing to the simultaneous laser frequency tuning and cavity dither. Hence, the absorption line profile is more accurate, which is most suitable for low-pressure trace gas detection. This work has great potential for accurate selectivity and high sensitivity applications in human breath analysis and atmosphere sciences.