Abstract
Pulsed transversely exited atmospheric (TEA) CO2 lasers, employed extensively in various applications such as light detection and ranging (LIDAR), have a pulse duration of about a microsecond due totheir nitrogen tail. In order to promote the measurement accuracy and the mean power of the laser pulse, the pulse duration should be shortened. In this research, we present the details of making a passive pinhole plasma shutter for a LIDAR (DIAL) system, which shortens the pulse duration of CO2 lasers from 1.5 μs to 25 ns in air at atmospheric pressure. This instrument increases the range resolution of the LIDAR system from 225 to 3.75 m. Also we show the results of investigation of the clipped pulse duration of the microsecond CO2 laser pulse using aluminum and copper pinhole metal targets with different pinhole diameters (1.5 and 1.8 mm) and at various laser output energies (338 and 309 mJ). Our experimental results show that the aluminum pinhole is more suitable than the copper pinhole for shortening the nitrogen tail of the CO2 laser pulse with a larger output average power. Thus, the range of the LIDAR system, which is proportional to the logarithm of the output pulse power, is increased.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
O. A. Romanovskii, Proc. SPIE, 6594, 65940C (2007).
M. Ivanenko, M. Werner, S. Afilal, et al., Laser Appl., 20, 13 (2005).
A. W. Pasternak, D. J. James, J. A. Nilson, et al., Appl. Opt., 20, 3849 (1981).
M. Hasselbeck, L. Huang, S. C. Hsu, and H. S. Kwok, Rev. Sci. Instrum., 54, 1131 (1983).
H. Hoshino, T. Suganuma, T. Asayama, et al., Proc. SPIE, 6921, 692131 (2008).
Y. Qua, X. Hua, D. Rena, et al., Proc. SPIE, 4914, 273 (2002).
T. Gasmi, H. A. Zeaiter, G. Ropero, and A. G. Urena, Appl. Phys. B, 71, 169 (2000).
H. S. Kwok and E. Yablonovitch, Opt. Commun., 21, 252 (1977).
J. Knittel, D. P. Scherrer, and F. K. Kneubuhl, IEEE J. Quantum Electron., 32, 2058 (1996).
C. Bellecci, I. Bellucci, P. Gaudio, et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum., 74, 1064 (2003).
T. Donnelly, M. Mazoyer, A. Lynch, et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum., 83, 035102 (2012).
N. Hurst and S. S. Harilal, Rev. Sci. Instrum., 80, 035101 (2009).
E. Jaafari, M. Kavosh Tehrani, M. Malek Mohammad, and H. Saghafifar, Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys., 70, 20802 (2015).
M. Kavosh Tehrani, M. Malek Mohammad, E. Jaafari, and A. Mobashery, Laser Phys., 25, 035701 (2015).
E. Beyer, L. Bakowsky, P. Loosen, et al., Proc. Soc. Photo-Opt. Instrum. Eng., 455, 75 (1984).
A. Hidehiko Karasaki, Patent No. US 5969335, Pub. Date. 19-10 (1999).
J. Wu, W. Wei, X. Li, et al., Appl. Phys. Lett., 102, 164104 (2013).
S. S. Harilal, R. C. Issac, C. V. Bindhu, et al., J. Appl. Phys., 81, 3637 (1997).
R. M. Measures, Laser Remote Sensing: Fundamentals and Applications, Wiley, New York (1984).
P. P. Geiko and A. Tikhomirov, Opt. Memory Neural Networks, 20, 71 (2011).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jaafari, E., Malek Mohammad, M. & Kavosh Tehrani, M. Promoting the Range and Range Resolution of a LIDAR (DIAL) System Using a Suitable Pinhole Plasma Shutter. J Russ Laser Res 38, 446–454 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10946-017-9665-1
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10946-017-9665-1