A compact frequency-doubled 10-kHz PRF copper-vapour-laser-pumped dye laser

A 10-kHz pulse-repetition-frequency dye-laser master-oscillator power amplifier, end-pumped by a copper vapour laser (CVL), is reported. This laser was based on recently available, lightweight and compact CVL and dye laser components. Dye laser tunability was achieved from 592 to 622 nm and, when the oscillator was etalon line-narrowed, up to 1.5 W of single-etalon-mode output was obtained from the amplifier at the 608-nm peak tuning wavelength. By frequency doubling this amplified output in a BBO crystal we obtained up to 225 mW of 5-GHz 308-nm output, which is suitable for the performance of tropospheric hydroxyl radical concentration measurements. Received: 16 July 2002 / Revised version: 6 November 2002 / Published online: 5 February 2003 RID="*" ID="*"Present address: Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EN, UK RID="**" ID="**"Corresponding author. Fax: +44-1865/272400, E-mail: d.coutts1@physics.ox.ac.uk     

The laser pulse from a rf waveguide CO2 laser

The behaviour of a rf-excited waveguide CO₂ laser in the pulse regime is studied experimentally. The specific time sections of the pulse have been defined and described in detail. The output pulse evolution versus input power, pressure of the laser mixture, output coupling, repetition frequency and pulse width has been investigated. The spectral content of the pulse has been analysed. A model explaining the effect of laser tuning during the pulse duration is given. The ultrahigh pulse (UHP), defined as the pulse for which the bulge effect occurs, is predicted. Received: 22 October 2002 / Revised version: 13 January 2003 / Published online: 26 March 2003 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +48-71/3203-189, E-mail: eda@zr.ita.pwr.wroc.pl     

New short-wavelength laser emissions from partially deuterated methanol isotopes

The partially deuterated isotopes of methanol, CH₂DOH and CHD₂OH, have been reinvestigated as sources of far-infrared (FIR) laser emissions using an optically pumped molecular laser (OPML) system recently designed for wavelengths below 150 μm. With this system, 10 new FIR laser emissions from these isotopes ranging from 32.8 to 174.6 μm have been discovered. This includes the shortest known OPML emission from CHD₂OH, at 32.8 μm. These lines are reported with their operating pressure, polarizations relative to the CO₂ pump laser and wavelengths, measured to ±0.5 μm. In addition, polarizations for three previously observed FIR laser lines from CHD₂OH were measured for the first time. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Dr. K.M. Evenson, a pioneer in the field for his role in the development of optically pumped molecular lasers and their use in laser frequency measurements and the laser magnetic resonance technique. His scientific expertise, guidance, mentoring and friendship will be greatly missed. Received: 27 March 2002 / Published online: 8 May 2002     

Emission of laser pulses due to transitions from metastable to metastable levels in strontium vapor

Multi-line laser transitions from one metastable triplet state to another at wavelengths of 2.92, 3.01, 2.69 and 2.60 μm have been obtained through high pulse repetition frequency longitudinal discharge in a mixed gas of strontium vapor and helium buffer gas. The intensity ratio of these laser lines was 5:4:4:1. As far as we know, these laser lines have never been reported except for 3.01 μm. Some mechanisms for forming a population inversion are initially discussed on the basis of analyzing features of corresponding energy-level structure and experimental phenomena. It is reasonable to name this kind of laser as an M–M transition laser according to the feature of the lasing process. Received: 15 October 2002 / Published online: 9 April 2003 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +86-0571/8795-1328, E-mail: pbl66@zju.edu.cn     

Far-infrared laser-emission spectroscopy on ammonia isotopomers

In this paper we report the investigation of the isotopic ammonia gases¹⁴NH₃,¹⁴NH₂D,¹⁴NHD₂,¹⁵NH₃ and¹⁵ND₃ optically pumped by a continuously tunable 20 atm CO₂-laser. We found 267 far-infrared emission lines, produced by both inversion and Raman processes, in the frequency range from 15 cm^–1 to about 250 cm^–1. 200 of these were observed for the first time. We obtained far-infrared Raman tuning ranges exceeding 3 cm^–1, photon conversion coefficients up to 12% and maximum output energies of 0.9 mJ. Furthermore, the optimum gas pressure, the polarization and the transient behavior of optically pumped ammonia have been investigated.     

KrF excimer laser ablation of thin Cr film on glass substrate

Received: 5 October 1998 / Accepted: 14 December 1998 / Published online: 24 February 1999     

Cavity-enhanced absorption spectroscopy with a rapidly swept diode laser

Cavity-enhanced absorption spectroscopy is explained in terms of the transmission function of a rapidly swept interferometer, and the integrated transmission is shown to be proportional to the cavity ringdown time. The technique is demonstrated on the b¹Σ_g ⁺-X³Σ_g ^-  (1,0) band in molecular oxygen at 687 nm using a tunable diode laser and a relative-ly high-Q optical cavity (finesse ≈4000). A detection limit of 3×10^-8 cm^-1 s^1/2 is achieved for a 0.8 cm^-1 scanning range. Received: 24 June 2002 / Revised version: 5 August 2002 / Published online: 15 November 2002 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +44-1865/275410, E-mail: peverall@physchem.ox.ac.uk     

Laser intracavity absorption spectroscopy

Emission spectra of multimode lasers are very sensitive to spectrally selective extinction in their cavity. This phenomenon allows the quantitative measurement of absorption. The sensitivity of measurements of intracavity absorption grows with the laser pulse duration. The ultimate sensitivity obtained with a cw laser is set by various perturbations of the light coherence, such as quantum noise, Rayleigh scattering, four-wave mixing by population pulsations, and stimulated Brillouin scattering. It depends on the particular laser type used, and on its operative parameters, for example pump power, cavity loss, cavity length, and length of the gain medium. Nonlinear mode-coupling dominates the dynamics of lasers that feature a thin gain medium, such as dye lasers, whereas Rayleigh scattering is more important in lasers with a long gain medium, such as doped fibre lasers, or the Ti:sapphire laser. The highest sensitivity so far has been obtained with a cw dye laser. It corresponds to 70000 km effective length of the absorption path. The ultimate spectral resolution is determined by the spectral width of mode emission, which is 0.7 Hz in this dye laser. High sensitivity and high temporal and spectral resolution allow various practical applications of laser intracavity spectroscopy, such as measurements and simulations of atmospheric absorption, molecular and atomic spectroscopy, process control, isotope separation, study of free radicals and chemical reactions, combustion diagnostics, spectroscopy of excited states and nonlinear processes, measurements of gain and of spectrally narrow light emission. Intracavity absorption in single-mode lasers shows enhanced sensitivity as well, although not as high as in multimode lasers. Received: 10 May 1999 / Published online: 29 July 1999     

Determination of an optimal five-gas combination in a sealed-off CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> laser

For obtaining the maximal output power, five lasing gas mixtures (CO₂, N₂, He, Xe and H₂) in a sealed-off CO₂ laser are optimized by applying a genetic algorithm and solving CO₂ laser kinetics equations. A comparison of numerical simulations shows that the optimal pressures of CO₂ and N₂ are 1.15 Torr and 7.32 Torr, respectively. Accordingly, the maximum laser power of 124 W is obtained by utilizing the optimal gas combination and an optimized resonator with a length of 1.2 m. Received: 14 August 2002 / Published online: 22 January 2003 The project supported by Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 602098). RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +86-571/8832-0369, E-mail: chengch@mail.hz.zj.cn     

Thermal tuning and modulation of a DFB fibre laser with a thin-film heater

Results are given for thermal tuning and modulation of a 1556-nm distributed feedback fibre laser by resistive heating of a thin silver film chemically deposited on the fibre. Without reaching the limits of performance, linear tuning is demonstrated at a rate of 1.72 pm/mW up to about 200 pm, and a peak-to-peak modulation of 100 MHz up to modulation frequencies of 60 Hz. The heat flow is analyzed, and the coated fibre is characterized in terms of the static and dynamic wavelength response to the applied electric power. The performance of the scheme is tested by recording part of the ν₁+ν₃ combination band spectrum of ¹³C₂H₂ with thermal modulation and scanning of the fibre laser. Received: 12 March 2002 / Revised version: 24 June 2002 / Published online: 25 September 2002 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +45/4593-1137, E-mail: sus@dfm.dtu.dk     

New laser lines from CHD2OH methanol deuterated isotope

Through the optical pump technique we have reinvestigated the CHD₂OH molecule as a source of far-infrared (FIR) laser lines using for the first time a CO₂ laser lasing on regular, hot, and sequence bands. As a consequence, we present here spectroscopic data of 16 new FIR laser transitions from this molecule. Furthermore, we also present a catalogue of all FIR laser lines generated from CHD₂OH. Received: 13 July 2001 / Revised version: 25 October 2001 / Published online: 14 May 2002     

Resonant photoacoustic simultaneous detection of methane and ethylene by means. of a 1.63-μm diode laser

A compact multi-component trace-gas detector based on the resonant photoacoustic technique and a NIR external cavity diode laser has been developed. It has been characterized using a mixture of ethylene and methane diluted in ambient air. A spectroscopic investigation of combination bands and overtones between 5900 and 6250 cm^-1, obtained with an IR pulsed laser photoacoustic spectrometer, allowed us to find a wavelength region where the 2ν₃ overtone of CH₄ and the ν₅+ν₉ combination band of C₂H₄ show uncongested rotational lines. Using a single-mode scan of the diode laser in this region, around 6150 cm^-1, the sensitivity for the simultaneous detection of ethylene and methane is 8 ppm/mW and 40 ppm/mW respectively. Factors affecting the sensitivity and selectivity of the detection system and possible improvements suitable to reach the sub-ppm detection limit are discussed. Received: 1 August 2001 / Revised version: 28 November 2001 / Published online: 7 February 2002 An erratum to this article is available at .     

Monitoring laser cleaning of titanium alloys by probe beam reflection and emission spectroscopy

The energy relaxation of electrons in InN epilayers is investigated by excitation- and electric field-dependent photoluminescence (PL). From the high-energy tail of PL, we determine the electron temperature of the hot carriers. It was found that the electron temperature variation can be explained by a model in which the longitudinal optical (LO)-phonon emission is the dominant energy relaxation process. The LO-phonon lifetime is fitted to be 0.89 ps, which is higher than the theoretical phonon lifetime. This deviation is attributed to the presence of the non-equilibrium hot-phonon effects. PACS 78.55.Cr; 78.66.Fd; 61.66.Fn; 78.20.Jq; 63.20.kd     

Frequency stabilization of CO laser using RF optogalvanic Lamb-dip

The Lamb dip of CO rovibrational transition is detected by a room temperature extracavity RF optogalvanic cell and employed to stabilize the frequency of a CO laser. The S/N ratio of optogalvanic signal is about 2000  at optical power < 1 W. The relative depth of Lamb dip is 2.3%. The S/N ratios of first and third harmonic demodulated saturation signals are about 40  and 10  , respectively. The CO laser is stabilized using the first harmonic demodulated signal, and the frequency stability is better than 300 kHz. Concurrently, the influences of operational parameters, which include the coil current, partial pressures of gas mixture, are investigated. A simple model for the influence of coil current is presented, and further improvements are addressed as well.     

Wavelength-modulation spectroscopy using a frequency-doubled current-modulated diode laser

We have studied atomic absorption in an argon discharge by wavelength-modulation spectroscopy with a frequency-doubled diode laser. The tunable wavelength-modulated radiation at 430 nm was generated by frequency doubling a current-modulated 860-nm diode laser in a KNbO₃ crystal. 2f-, 4f- and 6f-harmonic spectra as a function of diode laser modulation depth were measured on a Doppler-broadened sample of excited argon atoms produced in a capacitively coupled plasma chamber. Characterisation of the harmonic signals was accomplished. Minimum detectable absorbances of 7.7×10^-5 and 1.9×10^-4 based on a 3σ criterion (σ being the standard deviation of the noise) were estimated for 2f- and 4f-harmonic detection of the frequency-doubled radiation with a time constant of 0.1 s. The concentrations of argon in the 1s₄ state were found to be in the range of 3×10⁸ to 1.2×10¹¹ cm^-3 for the experimental conditions studied. Received: 25 February 2002 / Revised version: 4 April 2002 / Published online: 14 May 2002     

Cavity-enhanced absorption: detection of nitrogen dioxide and iodine monoxide using a violet laser diode

We present an application of cavity-enhanced absorption spectroscopy with an off-axis alignment of the cavity formed by two spherical mirrors and with time integration of the cavity-output intensity for detection of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and iodine monoxide (IO) radicals using a violet laser diode at λ=404.278 nm. A noise-equivalent (1σ≡ root-mean-square variation of the signal) fractional absorption for one optical pass of 4.5×10^-8 was demonstrated with a mirror reflectivity of ∼0.99925, a cavity length of 0.22 m and a lock-in-amplifier time constant of 3 s. Noise-equivalent detection sensitivities towards nitrogen dioxide of 1.8×10¹⁰ molecule cm^-3 and towards the IO radical of 3.3×10⁹ molecule cm^-3 were achieved in flow tubes with an inner diameter of 4 cm for a lock-in-amplifier time constant of 3 s. Alkyl peroxy radicals were detected using chemical titration with excess nitric oxide (RO₂+NO→RO+NO₂). Measurement of oxygen-atom concentrations was accomplished by determining the depletion of NO₂ in the reaction NO₂+O→NO+O₂. Noise-equivalent concentrations of alkyl peroxy radicals and oxygen atoms were 3×10¹⁰ molecule cm^-3 in the discharge-flow-tube experiments. Received: 4 February 2003 / Revised version: 10 March 2003 / Published online: 12 May 2003 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +44-1865/275-410, E-mail: vlk@physchem.ox.ac.uk     

Intensity resonances in a double-mode HeNe/CH4 laser with synchronized modes

4 gas laser with an intracavity absorbing cell is studied experimentally and theoretically at a modulation frequency approximately equal to the intermode beat frequency. It is revealed that in the vicinity of the absorption-line centre the intensity of every mode for certain system parameters displays resonance structures narrower than the homogeneous line width of the absorption line. This occurs when the range of mode synchronization is near the absorption-line centre and its size is less than the homogeneous width of the absorption line. Received: 29 February 1996/Revised version: 4 February 1997     

Output power optimisation of slab-waveguide laser with Gaussian output mirror

We present an approximate analysis of the nonlinear operation of the hollow slab-waveguide laser with Gaussian reflectivity profile output mirror, including gain saturation and longitudinal as well as transverse field distribution of the laser mode. The model presented is general and can be applied to the study of arbitrary configuration of the slab-waveguide laser. In particular, the laser characteristics obtained reveal the influence of the position of the output mirror and the Gaussian mirror parameter on the power efficiency of the laser system. Received: 6 January 2000 / Published online: 8 November 2000     

Remote sensing of volcanic gases with a DFB-laser-based fiber spectrometer

We demonstrate monitoring of H₂O and CO₂ emitted in a volcanic area, using a spectrometer equipped with two distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor diode lasers. Each laser is resonant with a molecular species and is fiber-coupled to allow remote operation of the spectrometer. Recordings of H₂O and CO₂ lines made at the Solfatara volcano, in southern Italy, are shown, and the application of such a spectrometer as a new tool for the continuous monitoring and surveillance of volcanoes is discussed. Received: 28 June 1999 / Revised version: 20 December 1999 / Published online: 23 February 2000     

Oxygen measurements at high pressures with vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers

Measurements of oxygen concentration at high pressures (to 10.9 bar) were made using diode-laser absorption of oxygen A-band transitions near 760 nm. The wide current-tuning frequency range (>30 cm^-1) of vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) was exploited to enable the first scanned-wavelength demonstration of diode-laser absorption at high pressures; this strategy is more robust than fixed-wavelength strategies, particularly in hostile environments. The wide tuning range and rapid frequency response of the current tuning were further exploited to demonstrate wavelength-modulation absorption spectroscopy in a high-pressure environment. The minimum detectable absorbance demonstrated, ∼1×10^-4, corresponds to ∼800 ppm-m oxygen detectivity at room temperature and is limited by etalon noise. The rapid- and wide-frequency tunability of VCSELs should significantly expand the application domain of absorption-based sensors limited in the past by the small current-tuning frequency range (typically <2 cm^-1) of conventional edge-emitting diode lasers. Received: 26 July 2000 / Revised version: 2 January 2001 / Published online: 20 April 2001