Differential radiometers using Fabry-Perot interferometric technique for remote sensing determination of various atmospheric trace gases

A new type of remote sensing instrument based upon the Fabry-Perot interferometric technique has been developed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Fabry-Perot interferometry (FPI) is a well known, powerful spectroscopic technique. One of its many applications is to be used to measure greenhouse gases as well as harmful species in the atmosphere. With this technique, absorption of particular species is measured and related to its concentration. A solid Fabry-Perot etalon is used as a frequency filter to restrict the measurement to particular absorption bands of the gas of interest. By adjusting the thickness of the etalon, the separation (in frequency) of the transmitted fringes can be made equal to the almost constant separation of the gas absorption lines. By adjusting the temperature of the etalon, which changes the index of refraction of its material, the transmission fringes can be brought into nearly exact correspondence with absorption lines of the particular species. With this alignment between absorption lines and fringes, changes in the amount of a species in the atmosphere strongly affect the amount of light transmitted by the etalon and can be related to gas concentration.