Noise-immune cavity-enhanced optical frequency comb spectroscopy.

ABSTRACT

We present a new method of optical frequency comb spectroscopy that combines cavity enhancement with frequency modulation to obtain immunity to laser frequency-to-amplitude noise conversion by the cavity modes and, thus, high absorption sensitivity over a broad spectral range. A frequency comb is locked to a cavity with a free spectral range (FSR) equal to 4/3 times the repetition rate of the laser, and phase-modulated at a frequency equal to the cavity FSR. The transmitted light is analyzed by a Fourier transform spectrometer with a high bandwidth detector. Phase-sensitive detection of the interferogram yields a noise-immune cavity-enhanced optical frequency comb spectroscopy (NICE-OFCS) signal. In the first demonstration, we record NICE-OFCS signals from the overtone CO2 band at 1575 nm with absorption sensitivity of 4.3×10(-10) cm(-1) Hz(-1/2) per spectral element, close to the shot noise limit.