Cost-effective manufacturing of compact TDLAS sensors for hazardous area applications

Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy (TDLAS) is finding ever increasing utility for industrial process measurement and control. The technique’s sensitivity and selectivity benefit continuous concentration measurements of specific gas components in complex gas mixtures which are often laden with liquids or solid particulates. Tradeoff options among optical path length, absorption linestrength, linewidth, cross-interferences, and sampling methodology enable sensor designers to optimize detection for specific applications. Emerging applications are demanding increasing numbers of distributed miniaturized sensors at diminishing costs. In these applications, the TDLAS specificity is a key attribute, and its high sensitivity enables novel sampling package designs with short optical path lengths. This paper describes a miniature hermetically-sealed backscatter TDLAS transceiver package designed for high-volume production at acceptable cost. Occupying a volume less than 1in3 and weighing less than 0.06 lb, the transceiver is a key component of TDLAS sensors intended for in-situ measurements of potentially explosive gas mixtures.