Optical Parametric Oscillator for Airborne Lidar

Present DIAL systems are limited in range, some require excessive maintenance, and all are limited as to the number and variety of gases that they can interrogate and diagnose. We propose to design and build a versatile, single laser transmitter system that will serve to monitor all the gases and aerosols within NASA's atmospheric monitoring missions. The proposed integrated system will incorporate a single laser to pump one or more Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO) modules, and will be tuned to match the absorption lines of any of the gases of interest. The system will be based on a novel design of an OPO, which will allow it to meet and exceed the requirements of the LIDAR application. By incorporating the new transmitter, in new or existing NASA DIAL systems, the overall system performance will improve and the maintenance will be significantly reduced.