A widely tunable 10-$\mu$m quantum cascade laser phase-locked to a state-of-the-art mid-infrared reference for precision molecular spectroscopy

Abstract

We report the coherent phase-locking of a quantum cascade laser (QCL) at 10-$\mu$m to the secondary frequency standard of this spectral region, a CO2 laser stabilized on a saturated absorption line of OsO4. The stability and accuracy of the standard are transferred to the QCL resulting in a line width of the order of 10 Hz, and leading to our knowledge to the narrowest QCL to date. The locked QCL is then used to perform absorption spectroscopy spanning 6 GHz of NH3 and methyltrioxorhenium, two species of interest for applications in precision measurements.

5 pages, 4 figures

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• Towards detection of the molecular parity violation in chiral Ru(acac)${}_3$ and Os(acac)${}_3$
• Absorption line shape recovery beyond the detection bandwidth limit: application to the precision spectroscopic measurement of the Boltzmann constant
• Quantum cascade laser-pumped terahertz molecular lasers: frequency noise and phase-locking using a 1560nm frequency comb
• Highly coherent phase-lock of an 8.1 $\mu$m quantum cascade laser to a turn-key mid-IR frequency comb
• Linear probing of molecules at micrometric distances from a surface with sub-Doppler frequency resolution
• Heterodyne coherent detection of phase modulation in a mid-infrared unipolar device
• Near-to mid-IR spectral purity transfer with a tunable frequency comb: methanol frequency metrology over a record frequency span
• Laser spectroscopy of cold molecules
• Ultra-sensitive heterodyne detection at room temperature in the atmospheric windows
• Wavelength modulation laser spectroscopy of N${}_2$O at 17 $\mu$m