Space weather, the study of the Earth's upper atmosphere and forecasting its response due to solar events, depends on knowledge of the state parameters of the neutral and ionized upper atmosphere. In this work, we present a ground-based diode-seeded, high-power, narrow-linewidth Yb-fiber amplifier-based lidar operating at 1083 nm for measuring temperature and density of the neutral atmosphere from 300-1000 km. The current state of the lidar system will be addressed, as well as ongoing work to increase 1) signal to noise ratio through power scaling and 2) spatial resolution and wind measurement capability via pulsed operation.

Date Published: 22 February 2008
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 6873, Fiber Lasers V: Technology, Systems, and Applications, 68730K (22 February 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.764982

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6873:
Fiber Lasers V: Technology, Systems, and Applications
Jes Broeng; Clifford Headley, Editor(s)