Intracavity laser absorption spectroscopy is a special laser spectroscopy technique for highly sensitive spectroscopic measurements.
The substance to be evaluated is placed within the resonator of a laser, which is preferably based on a gain medium with broad gain bandwidth and a resonator with low losses. When the laser is turned on, it starts to oscillate on many resonator modes simultaneously; only after many resonator round trips will the optical spectrum of the generated light strongly concentrate to the spectral region with highest gain. During this evolution, weak absorption features of the tested sample can imprint signatures on the spectrum, because they can influence the spectrum during many round trips. A measurement of the spectrum is done some time after switching on the laser; this time should be long enough to allow for strong spectral features to develop, but also short enough to prevent too strong narrowing of the spectrum caused by the finite gain bandwidth.
