Demonstration of a 100-mJ OPO/OPA for future lidar applications and laser-induced damage threshold testing of optical components for MERLIN
| Autor: | Jochen Wüppen, Hans-Dieter Hoffmann, Jens Löhring, Florian Elsen, Ansgar Meissner, Marie J. Livrozet, Reinhart Poprawe, Michael Strotkamp, Raphael Kasemann, Rudolf Meyer, Bernd Jungbluth |
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| Přispěvatelé: | Publica |
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
Optical amplifier
Materials science business.industry General Engineering Potassium titanyl phosphate Pulse duration 02 engineering and technology Laser pumping 021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology Laser 01 natural sciences Optical parametric amplifier Atomic and Molecular Physics and Optics law.invention 010309 optics chemistry.chemical_compound Lidar Optics chemistry law 0103 physical sciences Optical parametric oscillator 0210 nano-technology business |
| Popis: | In the field of atmospheric research, lidar is a powerful technology that can measure gas or aerosol concentrations, wind speed, or temperature profiles remotely. To conduct such measurements globally, spaceborne systems are advantageous. Pulse energies in the 100-mJ range are required to achieve highly accurate, longitudinal resolved measurements. Measuring concentrations of specific gases, such as CH4 or CO2, requires output wavelengths in the IR-B, which can be addressed by optical-parametric frequency conversion. An OPO/OPA frequency conversion setup was designed and built as a demonstration module to address the 1.6-μm range. The pump laser is an Nd:YAG-MOPA system, consisting of a stable oscillator and two subsequent Innoslab-based amplifier stages that deliver up to 500 mJ of output pulse energy at 100 Hz repetition frequency. The OPO is inherited from the OPO design for the CH4 lidar instrument on the French–German climate satellite methane remote-sensing lidar mission (MERLIN). To address the 100-mJ regime, the OPO output beam is amplified in a subsequent multistage OPA. With potassium titanyl phosphate as nonlinear medium, the OPO/OPA delivered more than 100 mJ of output energy at 1645 nm from 450 mJ of the pump energy and a pump pulse duration of 30 ns. This corresponds to a quantum conversion efficiency of about 25%. In addition to demonstrating optical performance for future lidar systems, this laser will be part of a laser-induced damage thresholds test facility, which will be used to qualify optical components especially for the MERLIN. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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