Submillimeter-Wave Absorption Spectroscopy of the Ar-CO Complex: Detection of the van der Waals Bending Vibration

Van der Waals bending rovibrational transitions of the Ar-CO complex were observed between 308 and 383 GHz using submillimeter-wave absorption spectroscopy in a pulsed supersonic jet. The submillimeter radiation was generated by a phase-stabilized backward wave oscillator source. Fourteen transitions of the P and R branch of the bending vibration were measured with an accuracy of about 100 kHz. The frequencies were fitted using effective molecular parameters including the band origin and the rotational constants for the ground state and for the excited bending vibrational state. © 1997 Academic Press.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Phase locked backward wave oscillator pulsed beam spectrometer in the submillimeter wave range

We have developed a new submillimeter wave pulsed molecular beam spectrometer with phase stabilized backward wave oscillators (BWOs). In the frequency ranges of 260-380 and 440-630 GHz, the BWOs output power varies between 3 and 60 mW. Part of the radiation was coupled to a novel designed harmonic mixer for submillimeter wavelength operation, which consists of an advanced whiskerless Schottky diode driven by a harmonic of the reference synthesizer and the BWO radiation. The resulting intermediate frequency of 350 MHz passed a low noise high electron mobility transistor amplifier, feeding the phase lock loop (PLL) circuit. The loop parameters of the PLL have been carefully adjusted for low phase noise. The half power bandwidth of the BWO radiation at 330 GHz was determined to be as small as 80 MHz, impressively demonstrating the low phase noise operation of a phase locked BWO. A double modulation technique was employed by combining an 80 Hz pulsed jet modulation and a 10-20 kHz source modulation of the BWO and reaching a minimum detectable fractional absorption of 2 × 10-7. For the first time, a number of pure rotational (Ka=3←2, Ka=4←3) and rovibrational transitions in the van der Waals bending and stretching bands of the Ar-CO complex were recorded. © 1998 American Institute of Physics.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe