A quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy sensor for measurement of water vapor concentration in the air.

A compact and highly linear quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (QEPAS) sensor for the measurement of water vapor concentration in the air is demonstrated. A cost-effective quartz tuning fork (QTF) is used as the sharp transducer to convert light energy into an electrical signal based on the piezoelectric effect, thereby removing the need for a photodetector. The short optical path featured by the proposed sensing system leads to a decreased size. Furthermore, a pair of microresonators is applied in the absorbance detection module (ADM) for QTF signal enhancement. Compared with the system without microresonators, the detected QTF signal is increased to approximately 7-fold. Using this optimized QEPAS sensor with the proper modulation frequency and depth, we measure the water vapor concentration in the air at atmospheric pressure and room temperature. The experimental result shows that the sensor has a high sensitivity of 1.058 parts-per-million. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]