A SOLID STATE OPTICAL HETERODYNE SPECTROMETER IN THE FAR-IR

Author Institution: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125.; California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125.Recent advances in the fabrication of ultrafast low-temperature GaAs substrates have made possible the generation of spectroscopically significant amounts of tunable, cw far-IR radiation via optical photomixing. In collaborative work with MIT Lincoln Labs, we have constructed a totally solid state optical heterodyne far-IR spectrometer based on distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) diode lasers operating near the atomic Cs transition at 852 nm. Spectrometer performance (frequency coverage, sensitivity, line width) will be outlined, as will possible future applications of this rapidly emerging technology