Excimer lasers in conjunction with Raman shifting techniques have commonly been used to get a multi-wavelength laser source for sounding of tropospheric and stratospheric ozone by differential absorption lidar (DIAL) systems. Stimulated vibrational Raman scattering in high-pressure gases as H₂ and D₂ has generally been used for shifting the output of high power excimer lasers to different wavelengths. In this paper it is shown that the stimulated rotational Raman scattering (SRRS) can also be efficiently employed to get laser radiation at the wavelengths required for DIAL measurements. In particular the first rotational Stokes generated by stimulated Raman scattering in H₂, pumped by a XeCl excimer laser at 308 nm, is at 314 nm, and the wavelength pair 308 nm/314 nm may be quite suitable for DIAL measurements of stratospheric ozone. The experimental conditions to optimize the Raman conversion to the first rotational Stokes are found in this paper, demonstrating that energy conversion efficiencies as high as 38% are obtainable with circularly polarized pump radiation.

Date Published: 26 May 1997
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 3104, Lidar Atmospheric Monitoring, (26 May 1997); doi: 10.1117/12.275161

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