Laser-pumped molecular lasers - Part II: Submillimeter laser experiments

Abstract

We report the first experimental determination of the gain spectrum of a laser-pumped submillimeter laser amplifier. Single-mode pump and submillimeter oscillators were used to determine the gain as a function of submillimeter laser frequency, pump intensity, relative polarization, and molecular gas pressure. The 385 μm transition in D <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> O and the 496 μm transition in CH <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</inf> F, both pumped by a CO <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> laser, were investigated. The use of single-mode lasers allows a direct comparison with theory. Good agreement is obtained with our recent theory which takes into account two photon contributions to the gain as well as space orientation ( <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">M</tex> -level) molecular degeneracy.