Abstract

In the last few years, laser action which is continuously tunable over broad regions of the far-IR spectrum has been achieved by pumping two different isotopic species of CH₃F with a tunable high-power 10-atm CO₂ laser.^1,2 For example, pumping across the ~450-GHz region spanned by the CO₂ 9R-branch lines from J = 10 to J = 32 excites R-branch transitions in the ¹²GH₃Fν₃ band with J = 14-26, and at pump power densities of the order of 10 MW/cm² this results in laser radiation tunable from 220 to 400 μm.

© 1986 Optical Society of America