METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATION OF TUNABLE COHERENT 16 MICRON RADIATION

• Main Authors: SOROKIN, PETER PITIRIMOVICH, LOY, MICHAEL MING-TAK
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 15.07.1981
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; COLORIMETRY; DEVICES OR ARRANGEMENTS, THE OPTICAL OPERATION OF WHICH ISMODIFIED BY CHANGING THE OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF THE MEDIUM OF THEDEVICES OR ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE CONTROL OF THE INTENSITY,COLOUR, PHASE, POLARISATION OR DIRECTION OF LIGHT, e.g.SWITCHING, GATING, MODULATING OR DEMODULATING; DEVICES USING STIMULATED EMISSION; ELECTRICITY; FREQUENCY-CHANGING; MEASUREMENT OF INTENSITY, VELOCITY, SPECTRAL CONTENT,POLARISATION, PHASE OR PULSE CHARACTERISTICS OF INFRA-RED,VISIBLE OR ULTRA-VIOLET LIGHT; MEASURING; NON-LINEAR OPTICS; OPTICAL ANALOGUE/DIGITAL CONVERTERS; OPTICAL LOGIC ELEMENTS; OPTICS; PHYSICS; RADIATION PYROMETRY; TECHNIQUES OR PROCEDURES FOR THE OPERATION THEREOF; TESTING

A coherent tunable narrow band source of infrared radiaion (IR) in the vicinity of 16 µm is achieved by fourwave parametric mixing in parahydrogen. A pair of colinear laser beams, one from a narrow band C02 laser (10) and a second from a multi-line laser (20) with output of wave number significantly below 14,400 cm-1, is focused in a parahydrogen containing cell (34). The multi-line laser beam drives a Raman process in the cell. The narrow band CO2 input beam mixes with this driver beam and the Stokes wave resulting from the Raman process to produce a 16 µm output beam. Tuning of the CO2 laser (10) allows tuning of the 16 µm radiation emitted by the parahydrogen cell (34).