Knowledge Bank

Recently, the number of $CO2$ laser lines available for optical pumping of far-infrared (FIR) lasers has been significantly increased by the development of a new cw $CO2$ laser at the Time and Frequency Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder. This system operates on very high J lines of the normal bands as well as on sequence and new hot-band lines, and has so far generated numerous new FIR laser transitions for $CH3OH,13CH3OH$ and $CD3OH$. These include the new 123 $\mu m $ world-record holder from $CH3OH$, pumped by the 9HP(20)hot-band $CO2$ line, which is now the most efficient known FIR laser line, In this paper, we discuss experimental details and spectroscopic assignments for a number of the energy level systems associated with these transitions.