Frequency Stabilization of CO₂Lasers through Saturated Absorption in SF₆

Abstract

Carbon dioxide lasers have been built with a new design for higher stability. The frequency stability is found to be better than three parts in 1011 when the lasers are free-running and two orders of magnitude better when they are stabilized on saturated absorption resonances of SF6. We discuss the present limitations of stability, reproducibility and accuracy in these experiments.