High Performance Nitrous Oxide Analyzer for Atmospheric Research

This project targets the development of a highly sensitive gas sensor to monitor atmospheric nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is an important species in Earth science research. It is one of the four principal greenhouse gases that result from human activities. It is the primary source gas for nitrogen oxides in the stratosphere, a useful dynamical tracer and a powerful greenhouse gas. It is the only long-lived atmospheric tracer of human perturbations of the global nitrogen cycle. Atmospheric mixing ratios for nitrous oxide are around 320 parts-per-billion (ppb). Though it's atmospheric concentration is much smaller than that of the most cited green house gas carbon dioxide, it is an effective greenhouse gas having a Global Warming Potential of 296 over a 100-year time span. Vista Photonics proposes to develop a compact, low weight, highly sensitive, in situ monitor for nitrous oxide.