A CRYOGENIC OPTICAL CAVITY FOR DIRECT ABSORPTION EXPERIMENTS: HIGH RESOLUTION SPECTROSCOPY OF BUFFER-GAS-COOLED MOLECULES

Abstract

Over 300 unique molecules have been detected in space, existing in extreme conditions that produce exotic chemistry. The work of this dissertation is to design and build an instrument that can reproduce some of these conditions and allow astrophysically relevant molecules to be studied in a controlled laboratory frame. The spectral signatures of two astrophysically relevant cyano species were probed using a custom-built instrument that combines buffer-gas cooling and cavity ringdown spectroscopy. The first portion of this dissertation (Chapter 2) details the construction and design of this instrument, as well as physics by which it operates. Chapter 3 discusses the use hydrogen cyanide as a initial probe molecule for first light experiments and benchmarking. Chapter 4 details the use of this instrument to probe the previously unassigned 2ν1 overtone of cyanoacetylene and assess the potential of the band to be used for observational exoplanet studies. Finally, Chapter 5 details the future directions for the instrument and the various chemical reactions it can explore.