Laser Radiation Attenuation as an Approach for Estimating Humidity and Pollution

Abstract

Humidity is considered as one of the factors causing high absorption for several laser radiation wavelengths, namely the 10.6µm. The aforementioned wavelength is produced by carbon dioxide laser. Humidity was found to have great influence on this wavelength. In this reported research project, a compact system for measuring humidity, pollution and Laser transmission was constructed on Laboratory Scale. It consists of a wooden box, which have two holes as inlet and outlet for laser beam. A third hole for water vapor flow was made on the wooden box. Furthermore, the box contains two thermometers for measuring temperature. By Using Beer-Lambert lw, I(x) =I₀ exp (-αx), the laser transmission was measured to be 86% at 10% humidity and 4% at 90% humidity. This suggests the great influence of humidity and similarly pollution (e.g. dust) on reducing the laser radiation transmission. We found the possibility of using the experimentally obtained laser transmission results as an accurate indication to estimate humidity and pollution