Towards Industrial THz Wave Electronic Gas Sensing and Spectroscopy

A demonstration of low-power THz wave electronics (less than 1 mW) for quantitative atmospheric gas absorption spectroscopy in the 220 – 330 GHz frequency band is presented. Measurements are reported for acetonitrile, methanol, and ethanol, VOCs important in the atmosphere and industrial settings. Measurements are demonstrated for the strongly absorbing acetonitrile vapors, comparable in SNR to previous measurements made with THz time-domain spectroscopy methods, and for pure methanol and ethanol vapors at low pressures (5 and 10 Torr).