Abstract

The merits of using coherent Doppler LIDAR to perform wind velocity and moving target measurements are well recognized. Coherent Doppler LIDARs employing CO₂ lasers at 10 μm wavelength have been developed to a point where ground-based and airborne systems have been sucessfully used for wind shear measurements.¹ With recent progress in compact and tunable solid state lasers, there is increasing interest in the development of an all solid-state coherent Doppler LIDAR which may offer technological advantages compared with CO₂ laser-based LIDAR, and is suitable for future space-borne LIDAR schemes. In this paper, we report the development of a short- pulse (<10ns) coherent Doppler Nd:YAG LIDAR at 1.06 μm. Preliminary coherent LIDAR measurement results will also be presented and discussed.

© 1990 Optical Society of America