Development of lasers for spaceborne Doppler wind lidar applications

During the course of years, various activities have been carried out at CESI (incorporating now former CISE Innovative Technologies labs) on Doppler wind lidar (DWL) for spaceborne applications. Historically, the first activities were related to the development of a CO2 laser transmitter for the DWL development with coherent (heterodyne) detection technique. More recently, efforts have been directed to the technology of neodymium solid-state laser transmitter with direct detection (edge technique). Presently, a work in course involves a team of European firms including CESI and is devoted to the breadboarding of a diode-pumped UV laser for DWL application. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.