Feasibility of dual comb spectroscopy in the UV range using a free-running, bidirectional ring titanium sapphire laser

Abstract

We show that our developed free-running, bidirectional ring Ti:Sa laser cavity meets the requirements for Dual Comb Spectroscopy in the UV range (UV-DCS). Two counter-propagative frequency combs with slightly different repetition rate are generated in such a cavity and we show quantitatively that this repetition rate difference can be explained by the self-steepening effect. Molecular absorption lines of the O2 A-band centered around 760~nm are measured with a 1,5 GHz spectral resolution, demonstrating that the mutual coherence of the two combs allows GHz-resolution DCS measurements. Moreover, we demonstrate that the generated output peak power allows for efficient second harmonic generation (SHG), in the scope of developing laboratory and open-path UV-DCS experiments.