Broadband cavity-enhanced molecular spectra from Vernier filtering of a complete frequency comb.

We present a new approach to cavity enhanced-direct frequency comb spectroscopy where the full emission bandwidth of a titanium:sapphire laser is exploited, currently at gigahertz resolution. The technique is based on low-resolution Vernier filtering obtained with an appreciable actively stabilized mismatch between the cavity-free spectral range and the laser repetition rate, using a diffraction grating and a split-photodiode. Spectra covering 1300  cm⁻¹ (40 THz) are acquired in less than 100 ms, and a baseline noise of 1.7×10⁻⁸ cm⁻¹ is reached with a cavity finesse of only 300, providing an absorption figure of merit M=6×10⁻¹¹ cm⁻¹·Hz(-1/2).