Optically Pumped FIR Laser Lines from CH3OH: New Laser Lines, Frequency Measurements, and Assignments.

We report the identification and characterization of eight new FIR laser lines from methanol (CH3OH) in the range 48.4 to 453.7 µm pumped by sequence and hot bands of a cw CO2 laser. Frequency measurements for most of the new FIR laser lines and from previously reported ones were obtained in the range 0.6-6.8 THz with a one-sigma reproducibility of two parts in 10(7). We propose an assignment of energy levels for two of the new laser lines and for five pumped by 10R(46) previously reported. The high frequency lines with absorption centers outside of the tuning range of the CO2 laser pump showed doublets. These were used to evaluate the offsets of the CO2 absorption transitions.