The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 15, 2002
Filed:
Dec. 23, 1999
Barbara A. Paldus, Mountain View, CA (US);
Richard N. Zare, Stanford, CA (US);
The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
An ring-down spectroscopy instrument comprising a ring-down cavity (RDC) and CW light source (CWLS). The CWLS produces light having components with different polarizations. The ring-down cavity is optically isolated from the light source so that light reflected from the cavity is precluded from perturbing the light source. A frequency shifter shifts a mean frequency of the first component of input light with respect to a mean frequency of the second component of input light by a frequency shift &Dgr;&ngr;. A first detector measures a signal beam with the a polarization. A second detector measures a tracking beam having a second polarization. The frequency shift &Dgr;&ngr; is equal to a difference between a resonant frequency of a first cavity mode with the first polarization and a resonant frequency of a second cavity mode having the second polarization. A threshold detector delivers a trigger pulse to the frequency shifter when an intensity of the signal beam reaches a predetermined value. The trigger pulse causes the frequency shifter to temporarily change the frequency shift &Dgr;&ngr;, thereby temporarily decoupling the first component of input light from the ring-down cavity. An embodiment of the invention includes a ring down spectroscopy method. Radiation coupled into a ring-down cavity is swept in frequency by to excite one or more resonant modes of the cavity. When a fundamental mode of the cavity reaches a predetermined threshold value a digitizer produces a ring-down decay curve. An absorption spectrum is determined by extrapolating a decay constant from a logarithm of the decay curve.