Description: Southwest Sciences proposed the development of a rugged, compact, and automated instrument for the high sensitivity measurement of tropospheric carbon monoxide (CO). The application of recently developed room temperature vertical cavity diode lasers operating near 2300 nm permits the development of sensitive and rugged instrumentation for measurement of atmospheric CO with high precision. Phase I efforts will address the feasibility of measuring CO to a precision of 10 parts-per-billion or better over a range of tropospheric temperatures, pressures, and humidities. Phase II will emphasize development of prototype instrumentation for field testing.

Benefits: The technology will have direct commercial application in new instrumentation for atmospheric research. Other important commercial applications include combustion monitoring and control and toxic gas sensing.

Successful development of a VCSEL-based instrument for high sensitivity measurement of tropospheric carbon monoxide will allow NASA to adopt a single high-reliability system for measurement of CO using a wide variety of platforms (e.g. aircraft, balloons, ground-based network, etc.). The instrument will be very compact and low-power and designed for long-term operation with minimal attention and maintenance.