Abstract

Atmospheric remote sensing is one of the most challenging application areas for new laser sources. Amongst the most widely-used techniques in this area is Differential Adsorption Lidar (DIAL) which uses repetitively pulsed narrow bandwidth lasers to make range-resolved measurements of species in the atmosphere. The most widely- used applications of DIAL use ultraviolet and visible lasers to measure a limited range of species, including ozone,sulphur dioxide, the oxides of nitrogen, toluene and benzene. More recently the applications of DIAL have increased significantly with the availability of tunable high-powered infrared laser sources including OPO's. DIAL measurements in the infrared including methane, propane, hydrogen chloride, hydrogen sulphide and hydrogen fluoride.

© 1996 IEEE