학술논문
A new spatially scanning 2.7 µm laser hygrometer and new small-scale wind tunnel for direct analysis of the H2 O boundary layer structure at single plant leaves
Document Type
Original Paper
Author
Source
Applied Physics B: Lasers and Optics. January 2015 118(1):11-21
Subject
Language
English
ISSN
0946-2171
1432-0649
1432-0649
Abstract
A new spatially scanning TDLAS in situ hygrometer based on a 2.7-µm DFB diode laser was constructed and used to analyse the water vapour concentration boundary layer structure at the surface of a single plant leaf. Using an absorption length of only 5.4 cm, the TDLAS hygrometer permits a H2 O vapour concentration resolution of 31 ppmv. This corresponds to a normalized precision of 1.7 ppm m. In order to preserve and control the H2 O boundary layer on an individual leaf and to study the boundary layer dependence on the wind speed to which the leaf might be exposed in nature, we also constructed a new, application specific, small-scale, wind tunnel for individual plant leaves. The rectangular, closed-loop tunnel has overall dimensions of 1.2 × 0.6 m and a measurement chamber dimension of 40 × 54 mm (H × W). It allows to generate a laminar flow with a precisely controlled wind speed at the plant leaf surface. Combining honeycombs and a miniaturized compression orifice, we could generate and control stable wind speeds from 0.1 to 0.9 m/s, and a highly laminar and homogeneous flow with an excellent relative spatial homogeneity of 0.969 ± 0.03. Combining the spectrometer and the wind tunnel, we analysed (for the first time) non-invasively the wind speed-dependent vertical structure of the H2 O vapour distribution within the boundary layer of a single plant leaf. Using our time-lag-free data acquisition procedure for phase locked signal averaging, we achieved a temporal resolution of 0.2 s for an individual spatial point, while a complete vertical spatial scan at a spatial resolution of 0.18 mm took 77 s. The boundary layer thickness was found to decrease from 6.7 to 3.6 mm at increasing wind speeds of 0.1–0.9 m/s. According to our knowledge, this is the first experimental quantification of wind speed-dependent H2 O vapour boundary layer concentration profiles of single plant leaves.