Dual-mode CO2-laser/microwave-sideband spectrometer with broadband and saturation dip detection for CH3OH

This work reports dual-mode operation of a broadly tunable CO2-laser/microwave-sideband spectrometer employing a Cheo waveguide modulator and a CO2 laser that can operate on hot and sequence band lines as well as low- and high-J regular band lines. The spectrometer has a broadband scanning mode at Doppler-limited resolution for spectral searching and assignment, and a narrow-band sub-Doppler mode for precision measurements. In broadband mode, a 6.7–18.5 GHz (∼0.4 cm−1) window can be covered for each sideband in a single microwave sweep with a tracking Fabry–Perot etalon filter under computer control. In sub-Doppler mode, saturation-dip spectra are obtained at sub-MHz resolution with absolute frequency measurement accuracy of the order of ±200 kHz. The instrumental performance is demonstrated via spectra of the C–O stretching fundamental vibrational band of methanol. Doppler-limited broadband scans have been recorded with good signal-to-noise ratio in both the low- and high-J regions of the 9.6-μm-CO2 lase...