High spectral purity CO/sub 2/ laser stabilized using a molecular frequency reference

A CO/sub 2/ laser has been frequency stabilized to a molecular absorption line with a bandwidth of 10 kHz, yielding a laser noise spectral density reduction below 1 Hz//spl radic/ Hz and a relative accuracy of 10/sup -10/. In the time domain, this corresponds to an Allan standard deviation of /spl sigma/(2, /spl tau/)=3/spl middot/10/sup -14/ /spl tau//sup -1/2/, for /spl tau/>100 /spl mu/s. This source allows experiments of very high resolution spectroscopy as well as the realization of accurate frequency standards in the 10-/spl mu/m region.<
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