Abstract
We present a technique called coupled-cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CC-RDS) for controlling the finesse of an optical resonator. Applications include extending the sensitivity and dynamic range of a cavity-enhanced spectrometer as well as widening the useful spectral region of high-reflectivity mirrors. CC-RDS uses controlled feedback of the probe laser beam to a ring-down cavity, which leads to interference between the internally circulating light and that which is fed back through a cavity mirror port. Using a 74 cm long ring-down cavity and a feedback cavity with a finesse of 16, we demonstrate that this effect increases the decay time constant from 210 μs to 280 μs, corresponding to an increase of finesse from to . Finally, we show that with the addition of a second feedback cavity, we observe ring-down times as long as , which is equivalent to , where is the effective mirror reflectivity.
© 2012 Optical Society of America
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