Abstract

Recently there has been increased interest in the development of an all solid state Ho LIDAR system for the detection of wind shears in front of aircraft and for the remote sensing of water vapor in the atmosphere.¹ The 2.1 μm Ho laser is considered to be well suited for these LIDAR application since it is eye-safe, can be pumped by diode lasers, and offers the potential for tunability. In this paper we report the precision tuning of the Ho:YSGG laser through the use of an intracavity etalon. The continous tuning coverage was measured from 2.080 μm to 2.089 μm (about 90 Å) and near 2.11 μm. This wavelength range overlaps several absorption lines of water vapor in the atmosphere and thus makes the Ho LADAR a useful candidate for the remote sensing of water vapor.

© 1990 Optical Society of America