Eye-safe diode-laser-based micropulse differential absorption lidar (DIAL) for water vapor profiling in the lower troposphere

Abstract

A second-generation diode-laser-based master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) configured micropulse differential absorption lidar (DIAL) instrument for profiling of lower-tropospheric water vapor is presented. The DIAL transmitter is based on a continuous wave (cw) external cavity diode laser (ECDL) master oscillator that is used to injection seed two cascaded tapered semiconductor optical power amplifiers, which deliver up to 2-μJ pulse energies over a 1-μs pulse duration at 830 nm with an average power of ~40 mW at a pulse repetition frequency of 20 kHz. The DIAL receiver utilizes a commercial 28-cm-diameter Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, a 250-pm narrowband optical filter, and a fiber-coupled single-photon-counting Avalanche photodiode (APD) detector, yielding a far-field full-angle field of view of 170 μrad. A detailed description of the second-generation Montana State University (MSU) DIAL instrument is presented. Water vapor number density profiles and time-height cross sections collected with the water vapor DIAL instrument are also presented and compared with collocated radiosonde measurements, demonstrating the instruments ability to measure night- and daytime water vapor profiles in the lower troposphere. © 2011 American Meteorological Society.