Partial pressure measurements with an active spectrometer

Partial pressure neutral gas measurements have been made using a commercial Penning gauge in conjunction with an "active spectrometer." In prior work utilizing band pass filters and conventional spectrometers, trace concentrations of the hydrogen isotopes H, D, T and of the noble gases He, Ne, and Ar were determined from characteristic spectral lines in the light emitted by the neutral species of these elements. For all the elements mentioned, the sensitivity was limited by spectral contamination from a pervasive background of molecular hydrogen radiation. The active spectrometer overcomes this limitation by means of a digital lock-in method and correlation with reference spectra. Preliminary measurements of an admixture containing a trace amount of neon in deuterium show better than a factor of 20 improvement in sensitivity over conventional techniques. This can be further improved by correlating the relative intensities of multiple lines to sets of reference spectra.