A development activity is in progress to renew the ENEL DIAL with the aim of obtaining a reliable multipurpose system, able to control different pollutants (SO₂, NO, NO₂, O₃, Hg, CO, etc.), together with important meteorological parameters such as water vapor concentration and temperature. The system is based on an Nd:YAG pumped Titanium:Sapphire laser, with the possibility to be tuned from UV to IR by frequency mixing. The frequency control is obtained by means of stabilized laser diode injection into the Titanium:Sapphire laser. The Nd:YAG pump laser, designed for spaceborne use in the framework of an ESA contract, is a very compact device, based on a master oscillator plus amplifier (MOPA) configuration with a Gaussian resonator. The main feature of the transient recorder is the high dynamic range (18 bit, i.e., dynamic range of 250,000) with a 10 MHz sampling rate and a reduced jitter for the laser pulse emission (less than 10 ns). The receiver photomultiplier follows a quadratic gain versus range law in order to reduce the LIDAR signal dynamic range. Most of the work concerned with these critical LIDAR components (laser, wavelength control, receiver) is presented.

Date Published: 17 December 1992
PDF: 5 pages
Proc. SPIE 1714, Lidar for Remote Sensing, (17 December 1992); doi: 10.1117/12.138536

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1714:
Lidar for Remote Sensing
Richard J. Becherer; Christian Werner, Editor(s)