METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATION OF COHERENT 16 MICRON RADIATION

摘要

A coherent tunable narrow band IR source in the vicinity of 16 mu m is achieved by four-wave parametric mixing in parahydrogen. A pair of colinear laser beams, one from a narrow band CO2 laser, and a second from a multiline laser with output of wave number significantly below 14,400 cm.-1, is focused in a parahydrogen containing cell. 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 mu m output beam. Tuning of the CO2 laser allows tuning of the 16 mu m radiation emitted by the parahydrogen cell.