Tunable near infrared radiation for sensing of natural gas

Near infrared radiation tunable from 3.04 to 3.40 microns for sensing of natural gas is generated through difference frequency mixing of Nd laser and the same pumped dye laser radiations in the recently developed Beta Barium Borate crystal. Exploiting very high laser damage threshold of the crystal, the conversion efficiency at the generated near infrared radiation in the mixing process can be increased to a large extent simply by raising the peak power densities of the input dye and Nd lasers