Dye laser intracavity absorption for molecular spectroscopy

Dye laser intracavity absorption has been used to a limited extent to observe molecular spectra for about 10 years. Most workers in the field operate their laser broadband and rely only on a spectrograph to resolve the spectra and to increase signal-to-noise ratio. The overall results have not been too satisfactory, and the effect has been to discourage people from applying this technique. It is the purpose of this paper to point out the advantages to be gained by wavelength sweeping the dye laser, to describe the laser system currently being used in our laboratory, and to present some recently obtained results.