Noise immune cavity enhanced optical heterodyne velocity modulation spectroscopy

The novel technique of cavity enhanced velocity modulation spectroscopy has recently been demonstrated as the first general absorption technique that allows for sub-Doppler spectroscopy of molecular ions while retaining ion-neutral discrimination. The previous experimental setup has been further improved with the addition of heterodyne detection in a NICE-OHMS setup. This improves the sensitivity by a factor of 50 while retaining sub-Doppler resolution and ion-neutral discrimination. Calibration was done with an optical frequency comb, and line centers for several N(2)(+) lines have been determined to within an accuracy of 300 kHz.