Laser Energy Monitor for Triple-Pulse 2-mu m IPDA Lidar Application

Integrated path differential absorption (IPDA) lidar is an active remote sensing technique for monitoring different atmospheric species. The technique relies on wavelength differentiation between strong and weak absorbing features normalized to the transmitted energy. An advanced 2-mu m triple-pulse IPDA lidar was developed at NASA Langley Research Center for active sensing of carbon dioxide and water vapor simultaneously. The IPDA transmitter produces three successive laser pulses separated by a short interval (200 mu s) with a repetition rate of 50Hz. Measurement of laser pulse energy accurately is a prerequisite for the retrieval of gas mixing ratios from IPDA. Due to the short interval between the three transmitted pulses, conventional thermal energy monitors underestimate the total transmitted energy. The design and calibration of a 2-mu m triple-pulse laser energy monitor are presented. The design is based on a high speed, extended range InGaAs pin quantum detector suitable for separating the three pulse events. Pulse integration is applied for converting the detected pulse power into energy. The results obtained from the laser energy monitor were compared to an ultra-fast energy-meter reference for energy scaling and verification. High correlations between the pin energy monitor and the total transmitted energy were obtained. The objective of this development is to reduce measurement biases and errors using the triple-pulse IPDA technique.