HR: 0830h
AN: A51F-0753    [PDF]
TI: Measurement of the Optical Extinction of Aerosol With the Cavity Ring-Down Technique
AU: * Pettersson, A
EM: apettersson@al.noaa.gov
AF: Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 United States
AU: Lovejoy, E R
AF: NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305 United States
AU: Brock, C A
AF: Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 United States
AU: Brown, S S
AF: Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 United States
AU: Ravishankara, A R
AF: NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305 United States
AB: Accurate measurement of optical properties of aerosols is crucial to quantify the influence of aerosols on climate. In this work, a laboratory system for the measurement of aerosols has been developed based on the highly sensitive Cavity Ring-Down (CRD) technique. In CRD, a laser pulse is coupled into an optical cavity consisting of high reflectivity mirrors to achieve very long effective path lengths (approx. 20 km). The intensity of the light that leaks from the cavity through the mirrors decays exponentially, and the lifetime is a sensitive extinction measurement. We will present results of calibration and statistical analysis of the system at 532 nm with monodisperse polystyrene latex spheres and dioctyl sebacate particles. The measured extinction agrees to better than 5 % with the extinction calculated from Mie theory.
DE: 0305 Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801)
DE: 0394 Instruments and techniques
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting