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Updated: Feb 6, 2026

Construction and Characterization of External Cavity Diode Lasers for Atomic Physics
Published on: April 24, 2014
1.6 MHz scanning rate direct absorption temperature measurements using a single vertical-cavity surface-emitting
Abstract:
This paper presents 1.6 MHz scan rate, non-intrusive, time-resolved temperature measurements of a normal shock reflection from a plane end wall within a shock tube. A vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) was used to conduct tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy with water vapor as the probe species. The results are compared with analytical predictions. Temperatures measured with this technique agree within a single-scan standard deviation of ±33 K with calculated temperatures at a VCSEL modulation frequency of 800 kHz, which is sufficiently rapid enough to be used to investigate highly transient shock wave interaction processes.
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