Summary
Early warning of the presence of chemical agent aerosols is an important component in the defense against such agents. A Raman spectrometer has been constructed for the purpose of detecting and identifying chemical aerosols. We report the detection and identification of a low-concentration chemical aerosol in atmospheric air using 532-nm continuous wave laser Raman scattering. We have demonstrated the Raman scattering detection and identification of an aerosol of isovanillin of mass concentration of 1.8 ng/cm^3 with a signal-to-noise ratio of about 19 in 30 s for the 116-cm^-1 mode with a Raman cross section of 3.3 x 10^-28 cm^2 using 8-W double-pass laser power.