Cavity Ring-down Spectroscopy of Nitric Oxide

The present work describes the construction of a cavity ring-down spectroscopy apparatus for the mid-IR detection of trace amounts of nitric oxide. The thesis expounds a theoretical background to optics and spectroscopy, the parts of the apparatus, the measurement of the apparatus’s performance and technical details, and results in limit of detection, pressure broadening measurements, and preliminary measurements of saturated spectroscopy, including Lamb dips, concluding with a comparison of our results to other spectroscopic techniques, and the difficulties we encountered in the course of the instrument's development.