High resolution vibrational overtone studies of HOD and H2O with single mode, injection seeded ring optical parametric oscillators

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Abstract
Design, performance, and applications of a pulsed, single mode optical parametric oscillator (OPO) for studies of high resolution spectroscopy and photodissociation dynamics are presented. Single mode operation is achieved by resonantly seeding a four-mirror OPO ring cavity with a tunable, continuous wave (cw) ring dye laser, providing continuous scanning capability at near Fourier transform limited resolution [Δν=160(20) MHz] with peak output energies ⩾10 mJ. The high spectral brightness of this OPO light source is sufficient to saturate Δv=3 stretching transitions in OH, NH, and CH vibrational manifolds, which makes feasible quantum state-selected multiple resonance spectroscopies at 0.005 cm−1 resolution. The capability of this single mode OPO is explicitly demonstrated via (i) vOH=3←0 overtone spectroscopy of HOD, (ii) near-IR optical saturation studies of H2O in the |03−〉 overtone vibrational manifold, (iii) high resolution LIF Dopplerimetry of OH radicals, and (iv) IR/UV multiple resonance spectroscopy of Ar–H2O molecular clusters.