A HIGH SPECTRAL RESOLUTION LIDAR BASED ON AN IODINE ABSORPTION FILTER

Päivi Piironen

August 1, 1994

Päivi Piironen University of Wisconsin--Madison Space Science and Engineering Center 1225 West Dayton Street Madison, WI 53706, USA

Keywords: High Spectral Resolution Lidar, lidar, iodine absorption, optical parameters of atmosphere, error analysis

Abstract

A High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) that uses an iodine absorption filter and a tunable, narrow-bandwidth Nd:YAG laser is demonstrated. The iodine absorption filter provides better performance than the Fabry-Perot etalon that it replaces. This study presents an instrument design that can be used as a basis for a design of simple and robust lidar for the measurements of the optical properties of the atmosphere. The HSRL provides calibrated measurements of the optical properties of the atmospheric aerosols. These observations include measurements of aerosol backscatter cross section, optical depth, backscatter phase function, depolarization, and multiple scattering. The errors in the HSRL data are discussed and the effects of different errors on the measured optical parameters are shown.

• Preface
• Contents
• Introduction
• Lidar theory of the HSRL
• Instrumentation
  • Introduction
    • An overview of the high resolution etalon based system
    • A short introduction to the improvements
  • Transmitter
    • Transmitter laser
    • Optics
  • Receiver
    • Optics
    • Data system
• Iodine absorption filter
• Calibration and tuning
  • Calibration theory
  • The laser wavelength locking into the iodine absorption peak
• Measurements
  • Depolarization ratio
  • Measurements of scattering ratio, aerosol backscatter cross section, and optical depth
  • Measurements of atmospheric temperature
• Error analysis
  • Error sources
  • Effects of different errors on the measured optical parameters
• Conclusions
• References
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