Oxygen concentration effects on laser-induced grating spectroscopy of toluene

The effects of variation in oxygen concentration on laser-induced grating spectroscopy (LIGS) signals from toluene vapour in nitrogen/oxygen mixtures is investigated. The modulation of LIGS signals arising from the interference of counter-propagating acoustic waves with a stationary density perturbation induced by pulsed excitation of toluene by frequency quadrupled radiation from a Nd:YAG laser has been measured as a function of oxygen partial pressure at total gas pressures up to 8 bar. The modulation depth or signal contrast is found to vary in an unexpected way with oxygen partial pressure and the behaviour is ascribed to energy transfer to excited singlet states of the oxygen molecule and subsequent collisional quenching. A simple model of the energy transfer dynamics is presented that reproduces the observed behaviour and the potential for using the signal contrast of LIGS signals as a measure of oxygen concentration is discussed.