Tunable infrared laser spectroscopy

摘要

The infrared region of the spectrum has been of great interest to researchers for many years with the mid-to far-IR frequency region from about 100 to 3800 cm~(-1) of particular interest. The vast majority of chemical substances have vibrational fundamentals in this region, and the absorption of light by these fundamentals provides a nearly universal means for their detection. For many years, work in this area with dispersive spectrometers was hampered by the low spectral brightness of blackbody sources. This situation has changed dramatically with the widespread use of Fourier transform infrared spectrometers with their multiplex advantage largely overcoming the low source intensity problem. To a lesser, but still very significnt and growing extent, the development of tunable infrared laser sources is contributing to the development of infrared spectroscopy. The purpose of this review is to describe recent research in tunable infrared laser spectroscopy.