Performance of a Herriott cell, designed for variable temperatures between 296 and 20 K

We designed, fabricated and tested a multipath Herriott cell (or off-axis spherical mirror interferometer) to achieve low temperature absorption measurements. The cell is fabricated entirely from copper, and the 15 cm radius of curvature copper mirrors have gold coated reflective surfaces. The cell was tested at temperatures between 296 and 20 K with a folded absorption path length of 5.37 m utilizing a lead salt tunable diode laser. Short term temperature stability (1 h) of the Herriott cell is better than 0.005 K under normal operating conditions with a temperature uniformity better than 0.01 K (not measurable). The cell was tested by performing collisional cooling experiments on ¹³C¹⁶O₂ in helium at temperatures between 70 and 20 K and by performing more traditional pressure broadening and shift measurements on molecular infrared absorption lines at temperatures between 300 and about 80 K on ¹³C¹⁶O₂ and methane.