Ti:sapphire laser spectrometer for doppler-limited molecular spectroscopy

A newly developed Ti:sapphire laser spectrometer is described that performs wideband Doppler-limited molecular spectroscopy at wavelengths ranging from 755 to 895 nm. Spectrometer performance was evaluated by use of the spectra of acetylene, ¹³C-acetylene, and oxygen. A nearly continuous spectral recording over 300 cm^-1 was carried out with a relatively simple frequency scanning system. With a tone-burst frequencymodulation technique, the spectrometer's minimum detectable absorption ΔI/I was 5 × 10^-5 at a time constant of 100 ms. The absolute accuracy of the wave-number measurements with a precise wavemeter was 1.5 × 10^-3 cm^-1 for the 790-nm 3C-acetylene lines.