Feasibility and performance study for a space-borne 1645 nm OPO for French-German satellite mission MERLIN

Elsen, Florian; Heinzig, Matthias; Livrozet, Marie J.; Löhring, Jens; Wüppen, Jochen; Büdenbender, Christian; Fix, Andreas; Jungbluth, Bernd; Hoffmann, Hans-Dieter

doi:10.1117/12.2052396

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The OPO contains four adjustable mirror mounts and to special mounts for the KTP crystals that is not described here. Details about the optical design and performance are given in [7]. Two test modules of the OPO were assembled and climate tested with the test parameters described above.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Key optical components for spaceborne lasers

Löhring

Winzen

Faidel

et al. 2016

Components and Packaging for Laser Systems II

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Spaceborne lidar (light detection and ranging) systems have a large potential to become powerful instruments in the field of atmospheric research. Obviously, they have to be in operation for about three years without any maintenance like readjusting. Furthermore, they have to withstand strong temperature cycles typically in the range of -30 to +50 °C as well as mechanical shocks and vibrations, especially during launch. Additionally, the avoidance of any organic material inside the laser box is required, particularly in UV lasers. For atmospheric research pulses of about several 10 mJ at repetition rates of several 10 Hz are required in many cases. Those parameters are typically addressed by DPSSL that comprise components like: laser crystals, nonlinear crystals in pockels cells, faraday isolators and frequency converters, passive fibers, diode lasers and of course a lot of mirrors and lenses. In particular, some components have strong requirements regarding their tilt stability that is often in the 10 μrad range. In most of the cases components and packages that are used for industrial lasers do not fulfil all those requirements. Thus, the packaging of all these key components has been developed to meet those specifications only making use of metal and ceramics beside the optical component itself. All joints between the optical component and the laser baseplate are soldered or screwed. No clamps or adhesives are used. Most of the critical properties like tilting after temperature cycling have been proven in several tests. Currently, these components are used to build up first prototypes for spaceborne systems

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Key optical components for spaceborne lasers

Löhring

Winzen

Faidel

et al. 2016

Components and Packaging for Laser Systems II

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“…Currently, within the FULAS (future laser system) project (see [5], [6]) a generic qualification model is being assembled that uses the same optical concept. *jens.loehring@ilt.fraunhofer.de; phone +49 241 8906 673; www.ilt.fraunhofer.de Furthermore, for the French German space mission MERLIN (see [7], [8]) a configuration is being developed that comprises the above-mentioned InnoSlab-MOPA and a subsequent OPO for frequency conversion to 1645 nm (see [9]). Here, the InnoSlab-MOPA is going to deliver 30-40 mJ of pulse energy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demonstration of a 500 mJ InnoSlab-amplifier for future lidar applications

et al. 2016

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In the field of atmospheric research lidar is a powerful technology to measure remotely different parameters like gas or aerosol concentrations, wind speed or temperature profiles. For global coverage, spaceborne systems are advantageous. To achieve highly accurate measurements over long distances high pulse energies are required. A Nd:YAG-MOPA system consisting of a stable oscillator and two subsequent InnoSlab-based amplifier stages was designed and built as a breadboard demonstrator. Overall, more than 500 mJ of pulse energy at 100 Hz pulse repetition frequency at about 30 ns pulse duration in single longitudinal mode were demonstrated. When seeded with 75 mJ pulses, the 2nd amplifier stage achieved an optical efficiency (pump energy to extracted energy) of more than 23 % at excellent beam quality. Recently, different MOPA systems comprising a single InnoSlab amplifier stage in the 100 mJ regime were designed and built for current and future airborne and spaceborne lidar missions. Amplification factors of about 10 at optical efficiencies of about 23 % were achieved. In order to address the 500 mJ regime the established InnoSlab design was scaled geometrically in a straight forward way. Hereby, the basic design properties like stored energy densities, fluences and thermal load densities were retained. The InnoSlab concept has demonstrated the potential to fulfill the strong requirements of spaceborne instruments concerning high efficiency at low optical loads, excellent beam quality at low system complexity. Therefore, it was chosen as baseline concept for the MERLIN mission, currently in phase B

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“…The OPO setup is inherited from the MERLIN setup. 11 In the four-mirror ring cavity, potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP) was used as the nonlinear medium. All four mirrors had a high transmission of the idler wave to reduce possible thermal effects and back conversion at high intensities.…”

Section: Frequency Conversion Unitmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demonstration of a 100-mJ OPO/OPA for future lidar applications and laser-induced damage threshold testing of optical components for MERLIN

et al. 2017

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Abstract. In the field of atmospheric research, lidar is a powerful technology that can measure gas or aerosol concentrations, wind speed, or temperature profiles remotely. To conduct such measurements globally, spaceborne systems are advantageous. Pulse energies in the 100-mJ range are required to achieve highly accurate, longitudinal resolved measurements. Measuring concentrations of specific gases, such as CH 4 or CO 2 , requires output wavelengths in the IR-B, which can be addressed by optical-parametric frequency conversion. An OPO/ OPA frequency conversion setup was designed and built as a demonstration module to address the 1.6-μm range. The pump laser is an Nd:YAG-MOPA system, consisting of a stable oscillator and two subsequent Innoslab-based amplifier stages that deliver up to 500 mJ of output pulse energy at 100 Hz repetition frequency. The OPO is inherited from the OPO design for the CH 4 lidar instrument on the French-German climate satellite methane remote-sensing lidar mission (MERLIN). To address the 100-mJ regime, the OPO output beam is amplified in a subsequent multistage OPA. With potassium titanyl phosphate as nonlinear medium, the OPO/OPA delivered more than 100 mJ of output energy at 1645 nm from 450 mJ of the pump energy and a pump pulse duration of 30 ns. This corresponds to a quantum conversion efficiency of about 25%. In addition to demonstrating optical performance for future lidar systems, this laser will be part of a laser-induced damage thresholds test facility, which will be used to qualify optical components especially for the MERLIN. © The Authors.Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.

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Feasibility and performance study for a space-borne 1645 nm OPO for French-German satellite mission MERLIN

Cited by 4 publications

References 3 publications

Key optical components for spaceborne lasers

Key optical components for spaceborne lasers

Demonstration of a 500 mJ InnoSlab-amplifier for future lidar applications

Demonstration of a 100-mJ OPO/OPA for future lidar applications and laser-induced damage threshold testing of optical components for MERLIN

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