The realization of a portable laser rangefinder, capable to measure ranges up to 1,200 m, raises particularly difficult problems related to the selection of an appropriate laser diode, having a sufficient optical power, but also the generation of very short rangefinding pulses, with very steep fronts. The authors used as emitter a high power pulsed laser diode CVD 193 from Laser Diode Inc. and build up for it a driving stage made up of a signal formatter that takes over the pulse sent by a microcontroller (that controls the whole rangefinder) and a switch based on a power high frequency MOSFET transistor 501N16A from DEI.

Date Published: 30 September 2003
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 5227, Advanced Topics in Optoelectronics, Microelectronics, and Nanotechnologies, (30 September 2003); doi: 10.1117/12.520110

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5227:
Advanced Topics in Optoelectronics, Microelectronics, and Nanotechnologies
Ovidiu Iancu; Adrian Manea; Dan Cojoc, Editor(s)