High-power eyesafe laser transmitter for microDoppler coherent lidar

Author

Stoneman, Robert C. ; Henderson, Sammy W.

Author_Institution

Coherent Technol., Inc., Lafayette, CO, USA

Volume

1

fYear

2001

fDate

2001

Firstpage

342

Abstract

We report recent developments at Coherent Technologies, Inc. of high-power in-band-pumped solid-state lasers for microDoppler coherent laser radar applications. Lasers based on the in-band-pumped 2.1-μm Ho:YAG and 1.65-μm Er:YAG solid-state materials have unique thermal properties which make them ideal for operation over wide ranges of laser pulse repetition frequency (PRF). The extremely low thermal load in the laser medium significantly reduces thermal aberrations, allowing operation with diffraction-limited beam quality at high output power over wide ranges of PRF. The low thermal load results from the close match between the pump and output laser wavelengths in the in-band pumping scheme

Keywords

Doppler radar; erbium; holmium; optical pumping; optical radar; solid lasers; 1.65 micron; 2.1 micron; Er:YAG; Ho:YAG; YAG:Er; YAG:Ho; YAl5O12:Er; YAl5O12:Ho; diffraction-limited beam quality; high-power eyesafe laser transmitter; high-power in-band-pumped solid-state lasers; laser pulse repetition frequency; low thermal load; microDoppler coherent laser radar; microDoppler coherent lidar; thermal aberrations; thermal properties; Laser applications; Laser excitation; Laser radar; Optical materials; Pump lasers; Radar applications; Solid lasers; Solid state circuits; Thermal loading; Transmitters;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics Society, 2001. LEOS 2001. The 14th Annual Meeting of the IEEE

Conference_Location

San Diego, CA

ISSN

1092-8081

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7105-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/LEOS.2001.969315

Filename

969315