A New Low Power, Light Weight, UV Ozone Photometer for use During the Concordiasi Antarctic Long Duration Stratospheric Balloon Campaign

A new ozone photometer has been developed using innovative Al-In-Ga-N Light Emitting Diodes with emission in the deep ultraviolet region. These new light sources are applied to the time-tested dual-beam absorption technique, creating an instrument with a sensitivity and response similar to or exceeding that of existing UV photometers, but with significantly lower weight and power requirements and higher reliability. The instrument has a precision of better than 3 parts per billion of ozone at a frequency of 1 minute, while weighing under 3 kilograms and consuming less than 5 watts of power. The instrument has been developed to meet specifications for the upcoming Concordiasi long duration stratospheric ballooning campaign over Antarctica. Four photometers will be flown aboard super-pressure balloons in the lower stratosphere in the Austral spring of 2010. The balloons will be launched into the polar vortex at polar sunrise where they will take quasi-Lagrangian in situ measurements during the formation and evolution of the Antarctic ozone hole over a period of 3 to 6 months. With additional measurements of particle size distributions during periods conducive to the formation of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), this campaign while provide valuable constraints on the rate of ozone destruction in the Antarctic stratosphere. Furthermore, the UV photometers described herein are well suited to other applications requiring lightweight low-power instrumentation, such as Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), ocean buoys and other types of remote and autonomous measurement stations.