ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Phys.
Sec. Optics and Photonics
Comparison and excitation optimization of commercial quartz tuning forks for QEPAS
Provisionally accepted
- Electric Power Research Institute of Guangdong Power Grid Co., Ltd, Guangzhou, China
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Quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (QEPAS) is a powerful technique for trace gas sensing, in which the quartz tuning fork (QTF) plays a key role in determining detection performance. Although custom-designed QTFs have shown enhanced sensitivity, commercially available QTFs remain attractive for practical QEPAS sensors due to their low cost and high reproducibility. In this work, four commercial quartz tuning forks with different geometrical parameters and resonance frequencies are systematically investigated for water vapor detection. The resonance characteristics of each QTF are experimentally measured, and the laser excitation position is individually optimized according to the tuning fork geometry. Using a 1392 nm distributed feedback laser and a 1.8% H₂O sample, the QEPAS performance of the four QTFs is compared under optimized conditions. Significant differences are observed in optimal excitation position, signal amplitude, and signal-to-noise ratio, with the standard 32.7 kHz QTF achieving the highest SNR of 430.4. These results demonstrate that commercial QTFs cannot be treated as interchangeable components and provide practical guidance for their selection and optimization in cost-effective QEPAS sensors.
Keywords: Absorption spectroscopy, laser spectrocopy, Quartz tuning fork, Quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy, signal-to-noise ratio
Received: 19 Jan 2026; Accepted: 10 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Peng, Qian, Zhao, Wang, Zhao and Fu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lei Peng
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