Angular divergence of forwards and backwards emission from an FIR laser,using a pyroelectric vidicon

The angular divergence of FIR radiation at 66 μm and 116 μm from a D₂O cell pumped by single mode pulsed CO₂ laser is obtained, in both forward and backward directions. The forward emission, in similarity with SRS at other wavelengths, emerges with divergence close to the diffraction limit in some cases. The backward emission, probably dominated by ASE, has a greater divergence and at high filling pressures appears to break up into speckles.