Laser remote sensing technique using coherent lidar systems are being widely used for wind measurements. Laser wind measurements use the Doppler shift of backscattered radiation to determine the wind speed. To measure the small Doppler shifts accurately heterodyne detection is used. This technique requires an energetic, low divergence, narrow linewidth laser transmitter to maintain a high degree of coherence. For measurements from ground, air, or space platform, a reliable, all solid-state laser transmitter in the eye-safe region with appreciable energy/pulse is required. This paper reports development and performance of a diode-pumped solid-state amplifiers at 2-micrometer. Q-switched, 400-ns pulses with output energy of 700 mJ at 2-micrometer, representing an optical-to-optical efficiency of 2%, was achieved from five diode-pumped Ho:TM:YLF laser amplifiers at room-temperature.

Date Published: 26 May 1997
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 3104, Lidar Atmospheric Monitoring, (26 May 1997); doi: 10.1117/12.275147

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3104:
Lidar Atmospheric Monitoring
Jean-Pierre Wolf, Editor(s)