COL 9(8), 081405(2011) CHINESE OPTICS LETTERS August 10, 2011
Conductively cooled 1-kHz single-frequency
Nd:YAG laser for remote sensing
Juntao Wang (
777
), Ren Zhu (
ÁÁÁ
>>>
), Jun Zhou (
±±±
), Huaguo Zang (
℄℄℄
uuu
III
),
Xiaolei Zhu (
ÁÁÁ
[[[
)
∗
, and Weibiao Chen (
¥¥¥
III
)
Shanghai Key Laboratory of All Solid-State Laser and Applied Techniques,
Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China
∗
Corresponding author: xlzhu@siom.ac.cn
Received February 28, 2011; accepted April 4, 2011; posted online June 21, 2011
A conductively cooled, laser diode (LD) end-pumped, injection-seeded single-frequency Nd:YAG laser is
designed and implemented. The laser is capable of producing an 8-mJ Q-switched pulse with a 11-ns pulse
width at 1 064 nm and at a pulse repetition rate of 1 000 Hz. At the maximum output energy of 8 mJ,
the frequency jitter is less than 3.5 MHz (root mean square (RMS)) over two minutes, and the linewidth is
around 54.2 MHz. The M
2
of the laser beam is approximately 1.30 in both horizontal and vertical direc-
tions. The optimized ramp-fire technique is applied to build reliable single longitudinal mode oscillating.
OCIS codes: 140.3520, 140.3540, 140.3570.
doi: 10.3788/COL201109.081405.
The use of reliable lidar systems in airborne and space-
based missions is considered to be an effective approach
in the measurement of earth surface mapping, horizontal
vector wind profiling
[1,2]
, carbon dioxide (CO
2
) profiling,
and ozone (O
3
) profiling, among others. A number of
plans of developing airborne and space-based lidar sys-
tems for earth and planetary measurements
[3−5]
have
been fielded or are currently being constructed, and
in most of these lidar systems, a ro bust s ingle frequency
laser transmitter is basically imposed
[6]
. In the project of
atmospheric laser doppler instrument (ALDIN), which is
currently being developed in the European Space Agency
(ESA), a space-based s ingle frequency Nd:YAG master
oscillator/power amplifier (MOPA) laser system with
high pulse energy will be used to directly measure wind
profiles on a global scale. In the ALDIN airborne demon-
strator (A2D), the laser oscillator provided an output of
10 mJ at the pulse repetition rate of 100 Hz at 1 064-nm
wavelength. After amplification, a single pulse energy of
200 mJ and a pulse duration (full-width at half-maximum
(FWHM)) of 35 ns were obtained at 50 Hz
[7]
. When the
laser is operating at the maximum output level, the fre-
quency stability of 1.3 MHz (root mean sq uare (RMS))
could be obtained over 14 s , and the mean value of the
linewidth was 14.8 MHz. In 2007, Hovis et al. reported
a conductively cooled single-frequency laser transmitter
with high r e petition rate of 200 Hz
[6]
. The output of the
diode-pumped single-frequency ring oscillator was over
17 mJ per pulse with a n M
2
of about 1.1. After a single
pass through the amplifier, the energy of the amplified
pulse was over 75 mJ per pulse, the M
2
was about 1.2,
and the pulse duration was around 17 ns.
In 2007, we reported a water-co oled laser diode (LD)
side-pumped solid-state single longitudinal mode (SLM)
laser for direct detection lidar applica tions
[8]
. The laser
was capable of outputting 14 mJ per pulse at wave-
length of 5 32 nm and had been successfully used as a
transmitter in mobile Doppler lidar system. In order to
meet the requirements of space-based lidar applications,
we prese nted in 2010 a design of conductively cooled
injection-seeded single-frequency 1 064-nm laser oscilla-
tor, which could operate at a repetition rate of 250 Hz
[9]
.
It provided single pulse energy of 10 mJ with pulse width
(FWHM) of 13 ns.
The signal-to-noise rate (SNR) of the lidar system is
proportional to the square root of the pulse repetition
rate of the laser transmitter under the condition of cer-
tain single pulse energy. Thus, higher pulse repetition
rate enables longer detection range and higher detection
accuracy. Therefore, it is essential to increase the pulse
repetition rate and the single pulse ener gy of the laser
transmitter. In this letter, we present a sta ble injection-
seeded single frequency laser that can opera te at the
repetition rate of 1 kHz. This will be very helpful to
lidar systems. To the be st of our knowledge, this is the
first report o n a conductively cooled single frequency
laser operating at a repetition rate of 1 000 Hz.
Figure 1 shows the schematic of the injection-seeded
single frequency Nd:YAG laser with fiber-coupled LD
dual-end pumping s tructure. The s ingle frequency seeder
laser for the injection system at 1 064-nm wavelength is a
continuous wave (CW) nonplanar ring oscillator (NPRO)
Nd:YAG laser manufacturedly by ourselves. This seeder
had the capability of outputting CW laser with a
Fig. 1. Schematic of LD dual-end-pumped injection seeded
Nd:YAG laser. PD: photo diode; QS: Q-switch.
1671-7694/2011/081405(4) 081405-1
c
2011 Chinese Optics Letters