Compact widely tunable ECqcL and its applications for gas spectroscopy

Over the past few years Daylight Solutions has introduced a family of tunable laser products tailored for scientific and OEM spectroscopic applications, ranging from gas sensing of complex matrices to condensed phase detection. The goal of this development is to create laser-based sources and instruments whose performance can rival and surpass that from conventional FTIRs. Specifically, these sources have the ability to obtain and analyze broad-band spectra in the midinfrared region with high spectral acquisition speed, perform with moderate to high spectral resolution and operate at room temperature, all while occupying minimal size and weight. This paper will report recent progress towards this goal. The performance of the novel laser capable of tuning 25% of the wavelength range centered at 8.8 um will be presented. A technology demonstration prototype employing a broadly tunable external cavity quantum cascade laser integrated into a portable, turn-key sensor will be described.