English

Intracavity trace molecular detection with a broadband mid-IR frequency comb source

Optics 2015-06-12 v1

Abstract

Ultrasensitive detection of methane, isotopic carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, acetylene and ethylene is performed in the spectral range 2.5 - 5 \mu m using intracavity spectroscopy in broadband optical parametric oscillators (OPOs). The OPOs were operated near degeneracy and synchronously pumped either by a mode-locked erbium (1560 nm) or thulium (2050 nm) fiber laser. A large instantaneous bandwidth of up to 800 cm1^{-1} allows for simultaneous detection of several gases. We observe an effective path length enhancement due to coherent interaction inside the OPO cavity and achieve part-per-billion sensitivity levels. The measured spectral shapes are in good agreement with a model that takes into account group delay dispersion across the broad OPO frequency band.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1301.5417,
  title  = {Intracavity trace molecular detection with a broadband mid-IR frequency comb source},
  author = {Magnus W. Haakestad and Tobias P. Lamour and Nick Leindecker and Alireza Marandi and Konstantin L. Vodopyanov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1301.5417},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

25 pages, 17 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T23:13:58.606Z