CONTROLLING THE PERFORMANCE OF A PULSED OPTICAL PARAMETRIC OSCILLATOR- A SURVEY OF TECHNIQUES AND SPECTROSCOPIC APPLICATIONS

We describe relatively simple procedures permitting the control of a c ontinuously tunable pulsed optical parametric oscillator with effectiv e optical bandwidths ranging from more than 10 cm(-1) to as low as sim ilar to 0.01 cm(-1). These techniques are surveyed, and their effectiv eness is demonstrated in terms of a variety of atomic and molecular sp ectroscopic applications. Spatiospectral phenomena in the optical para metric oscillator output beam are found, with significant implications for spectroscopy at moderate resolution. For higher resolution, injec tion seeding of a passive ring-cavity optical parametric oscillator by a single-mode diode laser is shown to permit continuous tunability wi th effective spectroscopic bandwidths approaching the Fourier-transfor m limit. (C) 1995 Optical Society of America