A stable submillimeter laser local oscillator for heterodyne radiometry and spectroscopy

A submillimeter laser with off-axis pump beam injection is described. This design concept achieves complete isolation of the pump laser with respect to the pump radiation reflected from the smm resonator. Active line independent stabilization of the pump laser is obtained by the use of an external tunable etalon as a frequency reference. The smm output power is constant to within 4% over periods of hours. Mean frequency drifts of less than 2 parts in 10⁸ per minute were measured by mixing with very high harmonics of an X-band synthesizer in a planar Schottky diode.