Publications by authors named "Brian R Washburn"

Article Synopsis
  • The study introduces an open-path mid-infrared dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS) system for accurately measuring stable water isotopologues (HO and HDO) over 3.75 months at a rural location.
  • The DCS system maintained 60% uptime and demonstrated a precision of less than 2‰ when comparing its measurements to the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) data.
  • The findings reveal consistent diurnal and seasonal patterns between DCS and NEON, highlighting the potential for denser monitoring networks to enhance understanding of water transport dynamics in the environment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Operation of any dual-comb spectrometer requires digitization of the interference signal before further processing. Nonlinearities in the analog-to-digital conversion can alter the apparent gas concentration by multiple percent, limiting both precision and accuracy of this technique. This work describes both the measurement of digitizer nonlinearity and the development of a model that quantitatively describes observed concentration bias over a range of conditions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Dual-comb spectroscopy measures greenhouse gas concentrations over kilometers of open air with high precision. However, the accuracy of these outdoor spectra is challenging to disentangle from the absorption model and the fluctuating, heterogenous concentrations over these paths. Relative to greenhouse gases, O concentrations are well-known and evenly mixed throughout the atmosphere.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Advances in spectroscopy have the potential to improve our understanding of agricultural processes and associated trace gas emissions. We implement field-deployed, open-path dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS) for precise multispecies emissions estimation from livestock. With broad atmospheric dual-comb spectra, we interrogate upwind and downwind paths from pens containing approximately 300 head of cattle, providing time-resolved concentration enhancements and fluxes of CH, NH, CO, and HO.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We have developed short (6-10 cm), connectorized acetylene-filled photonic microcells (PMCs) from photonic bandgap fibers that may replace near-IR frequency references for certain applications based on gas-filled glass cells. By using a tapering technique to seal the microcells, we were able to achieve a high transmission efficiency of 80% and moderate line center accuracy of 10 MHz (1). This approaches the National Institute of Standard Technology Standard Reference Material 2517a 10 MHz (2) accuracy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We investigate the mid-IR laser beam characteristics from an acetylene-filled hollow-core optical fiber gas laser (HOFGLAS) system. The laser exhibits near-diffraction limited beam quality in the 3 μm region with M = 1.15 ± 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cr:forsterite laser-based frequency combs are useful for spectroscopic purposes in the near-IR wavelength region. However, self-referenced Cr:forsterite combs tend to exhibit wide carrier-envelope offset frequency (f) linewidths, which result in broad comb teeth. This can be attributed to significant frequency noise across the comb's spectral bandwidth.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Stretched-pulse operation of a mode-locked thulium/holmium-doped fiber laser has been demonstrated using a high numerical aperture (NA) fiber inside the laser cavity for intracavity dispersion compensation. The high NA fiber exhibits normal group-velocity dispersion allowing for the net-cavity dispersion to be positive. We experimentally investigate the laser dynamics as a function of the net-cavity dispersion, observing the transition from stretched-pulse to solitonic operation as the length of high NA fiber was reduced.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We have isolated a single tooth from a fiber laser-based optical frequency comb for nonlinear spectroscopy and thereby directly referenced the comb. An 89 MHz erbium fiber laser frequency comb is directly stabilized to the P(23) (1539.43 nm) overtone transition of (12)C(2)H(2) inside a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Gas-filled hollow optical fiber references based on the P(13) transition of the ν1+ν3 band of 12C2H2 promise portability with moderate accuracy and stability. Previous realizations are corrected (<1σ) by using proper modeling of a shift due to line-shape. To improve portability, a sealed photonic microcell is characterized on the 12C2H2 ν1+ν3 P(23) transition with somewhat reduced accuracy and stability.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We have demonstrated a self-starting, passively mode-locked Tm/Ho codoped fiber laser that lases at one of two center wavelengths. An amplified 1.56 μm distributed feedback laser pumps a ring laser cavity which contains 1 m of Tm/Ho codoped silica fiber.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We demonstrate for the first time an optically pumped gas laser based on population inversion using a hollow core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF). The HC-PCF filled with 12C2H2 gas is pumped with ~5 ns pulses at 1.52 μm and lases at 3.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The frequency comb from a prism-based Cr:forsterite laser has been frequency stabilized using intracavity prism insertion and pump power modulation. Absolute frequency measurements of a CW fiber laser stabilized to the P(13) transition of acetylene demonstrate a fractional instability of approximately 2 x 10(-11) at a 1 s gate time, limited by a commercial Global Positioning System (GPS)-disciplined rubidium oscillator. Additionally, absolute frequency measurements made simultaneously using a second frequency comb indicate relative instabilities of 3 x 10(-12) for both combs for a 1 s gate time.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Saturated absorption spectroscopy reveals the narrowest features so far in molecular gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber. The 48-68 mum core diameter of the kagome-structured fiber used here allows for 8 MHz full-width half-maximum sub-Doppler features, and its wavelength-insensitive transmission is suitable for high-accuracy frequency measurements. A fiber laser is locked to the (12)C2H2 nu(1); + nu(3) P(13) transition inside kagome fiber, and compared with frequency combs based on both a carbon nanotube fiber laser and a Cr:forsterite laser, each of which are referenced to a GPS-disciplined Rb oscillator.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A frequency comb generated by a 167 MHz repetition frequency erbium-doped fiber ring laser using a carbon nanotube saturable absorber is phase-stabilized for the first time. Measurements of the in-loop phase noise show an integrated phase error on the carrier envelope offset frequency of 0.35 radians.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cavity-mode wavelengths in air are determined by measuring a laser's frequency while it is locked to the mode in vacuum during a calibration step and subsequently correcting the mode wavelength for atmospheric pressure compression, temperature difference, and material aging. Using a Zerodur ring cavity, we demonstrate a repeatability of +/- 2 x 10(-8) (3sigma), with the wavelength accuracy limited to +/- 4 x 10(-8) by knowledge of the absolute helium gas temperature during the pressure calibration. Mirror cleaning perturbed the mode frequency by less than deltav/v approximately 3 x 10(-9), limited by temperature correction residuals.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A phase-locked frequency comb in the near infrared is demonstrated with a mode-locked, erbium-doped, fiber laser whose output is amplified and spectrally broadened in dispersion-flattened, highly nonlinear optical fiber to span from 1100 to >2200 nm. The supercontinuum output comprises a frequency comb with a spacing set by the laser repetition rate and an offset by the carrier-envelope offset frequency, which is detected with the standard f-to-2f heterodyne technique. The comb spacing and offset frequency are phase locked to a stable rf signal with a fiber stretcher in the laser cavity and by control of the pump laser power, respectively.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF