Absolute frequency measurement of CO2 laser lines with a femtosecond laser comb and new determination of the CO2 molecular constants and frequency grid

Absolute frequency measurements of a CO₂ laser stabilized on saturated absorption resonances of CO₂ laser lines are reported. They were performed using a femtosecond-laser frequency comb generator and two laser diodes at 852 and 782 nm as intermediate oscillators, with their frequency difference phase-locked to the CO₂ laser. Twenty ¹²C¹⁶O₂ laser lines in the P and R bands at 9 μm were measured with a relative uncertainty of a few 10⁻¹² limited by the CO₂ frequency reproducibility. A new determination of the CO₂ molecular constants was obtained from these data and previous measurements in the 10 μm band. The CO₂ frequency grid was also calculated, with an improvement of two orders of magnitude compared to the previous grid of Maki et al. [J. Mol. Spectrosc. 167 (1994) 211].