Atomic mercury flux monitoring using an optical parametric oscillator based lidar system

A newly developed optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based differential absorption lidar (DIAL) system has been applied to the monitoring of atomic mercury emissions at several chlor-alkali plants in Europe. The versatility of the system is illustrated by measured time series of mercury flux and movies of vertical and horizontal concentration distributions, which yield important input parameters for the environmental community. Long term measurements of the resonance absorption of mercury at 253.65 nm poses special demands, i.e. long term stability, on the light source that often have been hard to fulfill, in different respects, for standard OPO and dye laser based systems. Here, approaches to meet these demands are presented. (C) 2004 Optical Society of America.