Abstract
Recent advances in femtosecond lasers made possible micrometer resolution in laser ranging. However, femtosecond lasers suffer from several disadvantages in practical use, such as low average power, high system complexity and cost, and stringent requirements on operating environment. These disadvantages prevent direct femtosecond time-domain ranging from factory or field applications. In 1987 a new ranging technique utilizing cw sources with short coherence length was reported.1 To achieve micrometer resolution, broadband superluminescent sources were used. Although this method is much simpler than direct femtosecond time domain ranging, it still suffers from low average power and lack of spatial coherence, which are intrinsic to superluminescent sources.
© 1992 Optical Society of America
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