The measurement of absolute absorption of millimeter radiation in gases - The absorption of CO and O2

An apparatus is described that will measure absolute absorption of millimeter radiation in gases. The method measures the change in the quality factor of a Fabry-Perot resonator with and without gas present. The magnitude of the change is interpreted in terms of the absorption of the lossy medium inside the resonator. Experiments have been performed on the 115-GHz CO line and the 119-GHz O2 line at two different temperatures to determine the linewidth parameter and the peak absorption value. These numbers can be combined to give the integrated intensity which can be accurately calculated from results of spectroscopy measurements. The CO results are within 2 percent percent of theoretically predicted valves. Measurements on O2 have shown that absorption can be measured as accurately as 0.5 dB/km with this technique. Results have been obtained for oxygen absolute absorption in the 60-80-GHz region.