A Cr⁴⁺:forsterite laser for intracavity absorption spectroscopy in the spectral range of 12–14 µm

We present a broadband cw Cr4+:forsterite laser operating at room temperature with a lasing threshold of 0.8 W that is tunable in the spectral range from 7246 to 8361 cm-1 (1196-1380 nm). This laser is applied for highly sensitive measurements of gaseous absorption inside the cavity. The maximum sensitivity demonstrated in the experiment corresponds to an effective absorption path length of Leff = 2500 km. The spectral bandwidth of laser emission varies from 3 to 150 cm-1 depending on the laser pulse duration, enabling broadband multi-component absorption measurements. We demonstrate sensitive detection of various species (with estimated detection limits), such as H2O (25 ppt), O2 (3 ppm), CO2 (150 ppb), CH4 (2 ppb), HCl (6 ppb) and HF (2 ppt) using lab-scale absorption lengths of about one meter.