Nitrate radical (NO3) is the most important oxidant in the tropospheric nighttime chemistry. Due to its high reactivity and low atmospheric concentrations, modern red light emitting diodes (LEDs) was proposed as light source in long path differential optical absorption spectroscopy (LP-DOAS) to measure NO3 radical in the atmosphere. The spectral properties of Luxeon LXHL-MD1D LEDs were analyzed in the present paper. The principle of LEDs-DOAS system to measure nitrate radical was studied in this paper. The experimental setup and retrieval method of NO3 radical were discussed in this paper. The retrieved example of NO3 was given and the time series of NO3 concentrations was performed for a week. The results showed that the detection limits of LEDs-DOAS system were 12 ppt for atmospheric NO3 radical when the optical path of LEDs-DOAS system was 2.8 km.