We describe the design, construction, and initial performance evaluation of a high-repetition-rate cavity ringdown spectrometer. The spectrometer is based on the use of the Pound–Drever–Hall technique to lock the laser frequency to the maximum of a transmission fringe of the interferometer used as a sample cell. This results in continuous injection of light into the interferometer. The injection is repetitively interrupted with an acousto-optical modulator to generate ringdowns (exponential decays) at a typical rate of $10\mathrm{kHz}$ . Averaging of these large numbers of fitted ringdown times allows us to attain a minimum detectable absorption of $1.43\times {10}^{-11}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-1}{\mathrm{Hz}}^{-1∕2}$ short term and $9.0\times {10}^{-11}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-1}{\mathrm{Hz}}^{-1∕2}$ long term. In addition, the spectrometer has a continuous tuning capability of $\sim 1{\mathrm{cm}}^{-1}$ , which allows the use of standard linearization and frequency calibration techniques for the spectrum. To illustrate the operation and sensitivity of the spectrometer, part of the Q-branch of a weak acetylene overtone has been recorded.

© 2006 Optical Society of America

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