Innovative Instrumentation

*Please note, references in BLUE indicate a CSL first or co-author publication.

Instrument development has always been a priority at the NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory (CSL) as new and improved instrumentation often leads to new science. The timeline below, going back to the late 1970s, indicates that CSL has continually been a leader in producing extraordinary instruments over the last 40 years. The CSL nature of collaboration allows for worldwide expertise in pursuing the most intuitive designs which fall into the categories of innovation, evolution, and adaptation.

Definition: new instrument concept developed at CSL to achieve measurements previously unobtainable

To demonstrate innovative development, here we highlight three CSL instruments: Laser-Induced Fluorescence (LIF), Portable Optical Particle Spectrometer (POPS), and the Fire Radiative Properties Package.

CSL's LIF instruments measuring sulfur dioxide ( SO2 ) and nitric oxide ( NO ) leverage recent advances in fiber laser technology making the operation of tunable deep-ultraviolet lasers outside of the laboratory and on many mobile platforms much more practical while reducing some aspects of experimental effort compared to other instrumentation.

CSL scientist  Pamela Rickly  presents in the video below how low detection level measurements of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitric oxide (NO) have become increasingly important in addressing specific scientific questions. CSL's LIF instruments have been able to overcome the obstacles of their predecessors by using advances in fiber laser technology to produce a compact, light weight instrument with the highest sensitivity and lowest detection limits. Their outstanding performance has created interest from state of the art institutions to duplicate these instruments.

The need for instrumentation on various platforms introduces the complication of size and weight constraints. To address this challenge, CSL has taken miniaturization to a new level.

 POPS  is a robust, small, lightweight, low-power consumption, and relatively low-cost research grade instrument that was completely designed and developed in CSL. It is used for measuring aerosol particle size and number concentration in the diameter range from 140 nm and 2.5 µm. This size range captures the bulk of accumulation mode aerosols, which efficiently scatter light and typically outnumber larger aerosols, contributing significantly to aerosol radiative forcing and Earth's radiation budget [ Gao et al, 2016 ].

In the video below, CSL scientist  Troy Thornberry  describes the development of the Portable Optical Particle Spectrometer (POPS) instrument from motivation to first deployments and how the utility of this miniaturized, science-quality instrument has led to its widespread application and successful technology transfer (research to commercialization).

The capability to produce miniaturized instrumentation has allowed for the use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to house the instruments for deployment in previously unreachable locations.

CSL scientists and engineers have developed a miniaturized remote sensing instrument package for fire extent (perimeter) and spatially resolved fire radiative power (FRP) measurements from a small Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) (payload weight ~1.5 kg). It consists of custom imagers and scanners at short- and mid-infrared wavelengths and a commercial visible and thermal IR camera.

Along with the importance of innovation in instrument development, growing advances in technology encourage the pursuit of instrumental evolution to motivate continued advancement.

Definition: CSL developed instruments that are continually being improved to produce better measurements

CSL's microDop lidar is a compact, modular, micro joule class Doppler lidar consisting of two physically separated modules connected by an umibilical cable, enabling deployments on multiple platforms to study atmospheric dynamics at various scales.

The PALMS instrument, which was first developed at CSL in the 1990s, is a laser ionization mass spectrometer for making in-situ measurements of the chemical composition of individual aerosol particles. An airborne version of the PALMS has flown in the nose of the NASA WB-57 aircraft. CSL's  Atmospheric Properties and Processes (APP) Program  Lead  Daniel Murphy  recently developed a new geometry Time-of-Flight (TOF) analyzer for the  PALMS  which will improve its measurement capability.

Considering the time and cost constraints of developing new instruments, adaptation of commercially available instruments to meet our scientific needs can provide a best path forward.

Definition: developments to enhance the capability of commercially available instruments to meet CSL mission goals

 TERN  is a highly-automated, peak-fitting chromatographic data analysis tool developed through CSL collaboration with  Aerodyne Research Inc ,  Virginia Tech University , and  University of California, Berkeley  that was funded in part by a NOAA Small Business Innovative Research Grant (2017-2021).

CSL has modified commercial Time of Flight Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometers (TOF-CIMS) to meet its specific scientific needs. 

The astounding workmanship of the CSL engineers and scientists make all of this exciting science possible.

*Please note, BOLD indicates the author was affiliated with CSL at the time of publication.

• Cziczo, D.J., D.S. Thomson, T.L. Thompson, P.J. DeMott, and D.M. Murphy,  Particle analysis by laser mass spectrometry (PALMS) studies of ice nuclei and other low number density particles , Int. J. Mass Spectrom, 258, 21-29, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijms.2006.05.013, 2006.
• Gao, R.S., H. Telg, R.J. McLaughlin, S.J. Ciciora, L.A. Watts, M.S. Richardson, J.P. Schwarz, A.E. Perring, T.D. Thornberry, A.W. Rollins, M.Z. Markovic, T.S. Bates, J.E. Johnson, and D.W. Fahey,  A light-weight, high-sensitivity particle spectrometer for PM2.5 aerosol measurements , Aerosol Science and Technology, 50(1), 88-99, doi:10.1080/02786826.2015.1131809, 2016.
• Gao, R. S., T.D. Thornberry, K.H. Rosenlof, B.M. Argrow, C. Dixon, J.S. Elston, J. Mandel, and A. Kochanski,  The Nighttime Fire Observations eXperiment (NightFOX) - UAS wildfire measurements for air quality, fire weather forecasting, and satellite validations , American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2018, abstract #A43J-06, 2018.
• Grund, C.J., R. Banta, J.L. George, J.N. Howell, M.J. Post, R.A. Richter, and A.M. Weickmann,  High-Resolution Doppler Lidar for Boundary Layer and Cloud Research , Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 18, 376-393, doi:10.1175/1520-0426(2001)018,0376:HRDLFB.2.0.CO;2.
• Isaacman-VanWertz, G., D.T. Sueper, K.C. Aikin, B.M. Lerner, J.B. Gilman, J.A. de Gouw, D.R. Worsnop, and A.H. Goldstein,  Automated single-ion peak fitting as an efficient approach for analyzing complex chromatographic data , Journal of Chromatography A, doi:10.1016/j.chroma.2017.11.005, 2017.
• Koss, A., B. Yuan, C. Warneke, J.B. Gilman, B.M. Lerner, P.R. Veres, J. Peischl, S. Eilermann, R. Wild, S.S. Brown, C. Thompson, T. Ryerson, T. Hanisco, G.M. Wolfe, J. St. Clair, M. Thayer, F.N. Keutsch, S. Murphy, and J. de Gouw,  Observations of VOC emissions and photochemical products over US oil- and gas-producing regions using high-resolution H3O+ CIMS (PTR-ToF-MS) , Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, 10, 2941-2968, doi:10.5194/amt-10-2941-2017, 2017.
• Krechmer, J.E., F. Lopez-Hilfiker, A. Koss, M. Hutterli, C. Stoermer, B. Deming, J. Kimmel, C. Warneke, R. Holzinger, J.T. Jayne, D. Worsnop, K. Fuhrer, M. Gonin, and J. de Gouw,  Evaluation of a new vocus reagent-ion source and focusing ion-molecule reactor for use in proton-transfer-reaction mass spectrometry , Analytical Chemistry, doi:10.1021/acs.analchem.8b02641, 2018.
• Murphy, D.M.,  The sTOF, a favorable geometry for a time-of-flight analyzer , Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, 28(2), 242-246, doi:10.1007/s13361-016-1518-6, 2017.
• Post, M.J., R.A. Richter, R.M. Hardesty, T.R . Lawrence, and F.F. Hall Jr.,  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Pulsed, Coherent, Infrared Doppler lidar - Characteristics And Data , Proc. SPIE 0300, Physics and Technology of Coherent Infrared Radar I, 1982
• Rickly, P. S., Xu, L., Crounse, J.D., Wennberg, P.O., and Rollins, A.W.,  Improvements to a laser-induced fluorescence instrument for measuring SO2: impact on accuracy and precision , Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2020-435, in review, 2020.
• Rollins, A.W., T.D. Thornberry, S.J. Ciciora, R.J. McLaughlin, L.A. Watts, T.F. Hanisco, E. Baumann, F.R. Giorgetta, T.P. Bui, D.W. Fahey, and R.S. Gao,  A laser-induced fluorescence instrument for aircraft measurements of sulfur dioxide in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere , Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, 9, 4601-4613, doi:10.5194/amt-9-4601-2016, 2016.
• Rollins, A.W., Thornberry, T.D., Watts, L.A., Yu, P., Rosenlof, K.H., Mills, M., Baumann, E., Giorgetta, F.R., Bui, T.V., Höpfner, M., Walker, K.A., Boone, C., Bernath, P.F., Colarco, P.R., Newman, P.A., Fahey, D.W., Gao, R.S.,  The role of sulfur dioxide in stratospheric aerosol formation evaluated by using in situ measurements in the tropical lower stratosphere , Geophys. Res. Lett., 44, 4280–4286, doi:10.1002/2017GL072754, 2017.
• Rollins, A.W., P.S. Rickly, R.-S. Gao, T.B. Ryerson, S.S. Brown, J. Peischl, and I. Bourgeois,  Single-photon laser-induced fluorescence detection of nitric oxide at sub-parts per trillion mixing ratios , Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, 13, 2425-2439, doi:10.5194/amt-13-2425-2020, 2020.
• Schroeder, P., W.A. Brewer, A. Choukulkar, A. Weickmann, M. Zucker, M. Holloway, and S. Sandberg,  A compact, flexible, and robust micro pulsed Doppler Lidar , Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 37(8), 1387-1402, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-19-0142.1, 2020.
• Veres, P.R., J.A. Neuman, T.H. Bertram, E. Assaf, G.M. Wolfe, C.J. Williamson, B. Weinzierl, S. Tilmes, C. Thompson, A.B. Thames, J.C. Schroder, A. Saiz-Lopez, A.W. Rollins, J.M. Roberts, D. Price, J. Peischl, B.A. Nault, K.H. Møller, D.O. Miller, S. Meinardi, Q. Li, J.-F. Lamarque, A. Kupc, H.G. Kjaergaard, D. Kinnison, J.L. Jimenez, C.M. Jernigan, R.S. Hornbrook, A. Hills, M. Dollner, D.A. Day, C.A. Cuevas, P. Campuzano-Jost, J. Burkholder, T.P. Bui, W.H. Brune, S.S. Brown, C.A. Brock, I. Bourgeois, D.R. Blake, E.C. Apel, and T.B. Ryerson,  Global airborne sampling reveals a previously unobserved dimethyl sulfide oxidation mechanism in the marine atmosphere , Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Feb, doi:10.1073/pnas.1919344117, 2020.
• Yuan, B., A. Koss, C. Warneke, J.B. Gilman, B.M. Lerner, H. Stark, and J.A. de Gouw,  A high-resolution time-of-flight chemical ionization mass spectrometer utilizing hydronium ions (H3O+ ToF-CIMS) for measurements of volatile organic compounds in the atmosphere , Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, 9, 2735-2752, doi:10.5194/amt-9-2735-2016, 2016.