Tunable te-CO2 laser-pumped formaldehyde far-infrared lasers: Offsets, assignment, and superfluorescence

Sixty and three absorption transitions in D₂CO and H₂CO, respectively, have produced a number of far infrared laser lines when they are pumped by an etalon-tuned TE-CO₂ laser. Almost all the absorption transitions pumped previously by a free runing TE-CO₂ laser have been efficiently pumped by the etalon tuned CO₂ laser and found to have offset within ±500 MHz from the line-center of the relevant CO₂ pump lines. 22 (1) absorption and 63 (4) emission lines of D₂CO (H₂CO) are assigned. Some of these lines have generated superfluorescence. In paticular, the D₂CO 319-μm line pumped by CO₂-9P(32) delivered an output energy of approximately one half that of the well-known D₂O 66-μm. It is shown that a large electric dipole moment and an appreciable amount of fractional population in the lower level of the pump transition of this line are responsible to the superfluorescence.