This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 7153, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, and the Conference Committee listing.

We have used a remote time-resolved telescopic Raman system equipped with 532 nm pulsed laser excitation and a gated intensified CCD (ICCD) detector for measuring Raman spectra of a number of minerals at high temperature to 970 K. Remote Raman measurements were made with samples at 9-meter in side a high-temperature furnace by gating the ICCD detector with 2 micro-sec gate to minimize interference from blackbody emission from mineral surfaces at high temperature as well as interference from ambient light. A comparison of Raman spectra of gypsum (CaSO₄.2H₂O), dolomite (CaMg(CO₃)₂), and olivine (Mg₂Fe_2-xSiO₄), as a function of temperature shows that the Raman lines remains sharp and well defined even in the high-temperature spectra. In the case of gypsum, Raman spectral fingerprints of CaSO₄.H₂O at 518 K were observed due to dehydration of gypsum. In the case of dolomite, partial mineral dissociation was observed at 973 K at ambient pressure indicating that some of the dolomite might survive on Venus surface that is at ~750 K and 92 atmospheric pressure. Time-resolved Raman spectra of low clino-enstatite (MgSiO₃) measured at 75 mm from the sample in side the high-temperature furnace also show that the Raman lines remains sharp and well defined in the high temperature spectra. These high-temperature remote Raman spectra of minerals show that time-resolved Raman spectroscopy can be used as a potential tool for exploring Venus surface mineralogy at shorter (75 mm) and long (9 m) distances from the samples both during daytime and nighttime. The remote Raman system could also be used for measuring profiles of molecular species in the dense Venus atmosphere during descent as well as on the surface.

Lasers can be engineered and specifically designed for particular remote sensing applications. Laser material selection criteria in this venture are reliability, efficiency, and operation at a specific wavelength. Traditionally, atmospheric researchers adapted existing lasers to remote sensing applications. However, research programs at NASA Langley Research Center has fundamentally altered the way by which laser materials are selected using quantum mechanical modeling. A program of development to predict new laser materials, as well as new methods utilizing existing laser materials, specifically designed to improve lidar or DIAL performance is discussed. This article will cover specifics of the development program and applications.

In the process of designing a coherent, high energy 2μm, Doppler wind Lidar, various types of Q-Switch materials and configurations have been investigated for the oscillator. Designing an oscillator with a relatively low gain laser material presents challenges related to the management high internal circulating fluence due to high reflective output coupler. This problem is compounded by the loss of hold-off. In addition, the selection has to take into account the round trip optical loss in the resonator and the loss of hold-off. For this application, a Brewster cut 5mm aperture, fused silica AO Q-switch is selected. Once the Q-switch is selected various rf frequencies were evaluated. Since the Lidar has to perform in single longitudinal and transverse mode with transform limited line width, in this paper, various seeding configurations are presented in the context of Q-Switch diffraction efficiency. The master oscillator power amplifier has demonstrated over 350mJ output when the amplifier is operated in double pass mode and higher than 250mJ when operated in single pass configuration. The repetition rate of the system is 10Hz and with a pulse length of 200ns.

Observations of tropospheric aerosols (mineral dust, air-pollution aerosols, etc.) and clouds are being conducted using a network of two-wavelength (1064nm, 532nm) polarization (532nm) lidars in the East Asian region. Currently, the lidars are operated continuously at 23 locations in Japan, Korea, China, Mongolia and Thailand. A real-time data processing system was developed for the network, and the data products such as the attenuated backscatter coefficients and the estimated extinction coefficients for non-spherical and spherical aerosols are generated automatically for online network stations. The data are used in the real-time monitoring of Asian dust as well as in the studies of regional air pollution and climate change.

An in-line typed new concept lidar system for high precision polarization measurement was developed. A specially designed polarization-independent optical circulator, which was composed by Gran laser prisms and highly transparent Faraday rotators, was developed. Its isolation between the orthogonal polarizations was improved up to more than 30 dB. It is sufficient to detect small rotation of the polarization plane of the propagating beam caused by lightning discharges due to the Faraday effect. The rotation angle of the polarization plane is estimated by the differential detection between the orthogonal polarization components of the lidar echoes. The in-line optics enables near range measurement from the near range of >30 m with the narrow field of view of 0.17 mrad. The fundamental measurements of lidar echoes in near and far fields, and low cloud activities were examined.

We report on the development of a low-cost differential absorption lidar (DIAL) for profiling water vapour in the lower atmosphere. It uses diode lasers in the 830nm region, differing from previously constructed water DIAL systems in having a double master laser design with active stabilisation of both wavelengths. We present measurements of backscatter coefficients of aerosols over Adelaide that feed into a sensitivity analysis, as well as initial DIAL measurements.

We have developed 2micron Q-switched lasers with conductive-cooled side pumped laser head. Q-switched output of 100mJ at 20Hz has been achieved in a Tm,Ho:YLF laser oscillator with a composite rod. The experiments showed that very good thermal conduction is held between rod and heat sink. This laser head may be used for laser amplifier of 500mJ output. Another type of Tm,Ho:YLF laser head has been developed for the oscillator of 50-100mJ output at 20-40Hz. These 2micron lasers are applied to coherent lidar systems, which will be used to measure atmospheric CO₂ and wind profiling.

We have demonstrated the 1.6 micron CW modulation hard-target DIfferential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) system for CO2 sensing. In this system, ON and OFF wavelength laser lights are intensity modulated with CW modulation signal. Received lights of the two wavelengths from the hard-target are discriminated by modulation frequencies in electrical signal domain. Since the optical circuit is fiber-based, the system is compact, flexible, and reliable. It is shown that stable CO2 concentration measurement corresponding to 4 ppm(rms) can be realized in the measurement time of 32s. This measurement stability is better than those obtained by the conventional CO₂ sensing DIAL systems in the same measurement time. And the diurnal change of the measured results is in good agreement with the ones measured by an in-situ CO₂ meter.

In the stratosphere, the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) has observed the presence of aerosol plumes associated with the eruptions several volcanoes including Montserrat (May 2006), Chaiten (May 2008), and Kasatochi (August 2008). While the dense ash plumes from these eruptions dissipate relatively quickly, CALIPSO continued to detect an enhanced aerosol layer from the Montserrat eruption from the initial observations in June 2006 well into 2008. Solar occultation missions were uniquely capable of monitoring stratospheric aerosol. However, since the end of long-lived instruments like the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE II), there has been no clear space-based successor instrument. A number of active instruments, some employing new techniques, are being evaluated as candidate sources of stratospheric aerosol data. Herein, we examine suitability of the CALIPSO 532-nm aerosol backscatter coefficient measurements.

A micro pulse lidar (MPL) has been indigenously designed and developed at the National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi using a 532 nm, 500 pico second pulsed laser having average power of 50mW (at 7.5 KHz PRR). Photon counting technique has been incorporated using the conventional optics, multichannel scaler (Stanford Research Systems SR430) and high sensitive photomultiplier tube. The sensitivity, range and bin etc are computer controlled in the present system. The interfacing between MPL and computer has been achieved by serial (RS232) and parallel printer port. The necessary software and graphical user interface has been developed using visual basic. In addition to this the telescope cover status sensing circuit has been incorporated to avoid conflict between dark count and background acquisition. The micro pulse lidar will be used for the aerosol, boundary layer and the cloud studies at a bin resolution of 6 meters. In the present communication the details of the system and preliminary results will be presented.

Lidar has proven to be an effective instrument for obtaining high resolution profiles of atmospheric aerosols. Deriving the optical properties of aerosols from the experimentally obtained lidar data is one of the most interesting and challenging task for the atmospheric scientists. A few methods had been developed so far, to obtain the quantitative profiles of extinction and backscattering coefficient of aerosols from the pulsed backscattering lidar measurements. Most of the existing inversion methods assume a range independent value for the scattering ratio for inverting the lidar signal even though it is known that the scattering ratio depends on the nature of aerosols and as such range dependent. We used a modified Klett's method for the inversion of lidar signal that uses range dependent scattering ratio (s) for the characterization of atmospheric aerosols. This method provides the constants k and s for all the altitude regions of the atmosphere and leads to derive the aerosol extinction profile for the lidar data. In this paper we made a study on the errors involved in the extinction profiles derived using the range dependent scattering ratio and discuss the approach in this regard to obtain the accurate extinction profiles.

Using data obtained various sources namely Radiosonde, Automatic weather station and boundary layer lidar the lower stratosphere at Chennai (madras India Lat13.04N Lan80.17E ) is studied specially with reference to winter of 2007 (Jan-Feb) and the results presented.

Cirrus clouds have been identified as one of the most uncertain component in the atmospheric research. It is known that cirrus clouds modulate the earth's climate through direct and indirect modification of radiation. The role of cirrus clouds depends mainly on their microphysical properties. To understand cirrus clouds better, we must observe and characterize their properties. In-situ observation of such clouds is a challenging experiment, as the clouds are located at high altitudes. Active remote sensing method based on lidar can detect high and thin cirrus clouds with good spatial and temporal resolution. We present the result obtained on the microphysical properties of the cirrus clouds at two Tropical stations namely Gadhanki, Tirupati (13.50 N, 79.20 E), India and Trivandrum (13.50 N, 770 E) Kerala, India from the ground based pulsed Nd: YAG lidar systems installed at the stations. A variant of the widely used Klett's lidar inversion method with range dependent scattering ratio is used for the present study for the retrieval of aerosol extinction and microphysical parameters of cirrus cloud.

There is a growing need in space and environmental research applications for dual-mode, passive and active 2D and 3D ladar imaging methods. To fill this need, an advanced back-illuminated avalanche photodiode (APD) design is presented based on crystallographically etched (100) epitaxial silicon on R-plane sapphire (SOS), enabling single photon sensitive, solid-state focal plane arrays (FPAs) with wide dynamic range, supporting passive and active imaging capability in a single FPA. When (100) silicon is properly etched with KOH:IPA:H₂O solution through a thermally grown oxide mask, square based pyramidal frustum or mesa arrays result with the four mesa sidewalls of the APD formed by (111) silicon planes that intersect the (100) planes at a crystallographic angle, Φc = 54.7°. The APD device is fabricated in the mesa using conventional silicon processing technology. Detectors are back-illuminated through light focusing microlenses fabricated in the thinned, AR-coated sapphire substrate. The APDs share a common, front-side anode contact, made locally at the base of each device mesa. A low resistance (Al) or (Cu) metal anode grid fills the space between pixels and also inhibits optical cross-talk. SOS-APD arrays are indium bump-bonded to CMOS readout ICs to produce hybrid FPAs. The quantum efficiency for the square 27 µm pixels exceeds 50% for 250 nm < λ < 400 nm and exceeds 80% for 400 nm < λ < 700 nm. The sapphire microlenses compensate detector quantum efficiency loss resulting from the mesa geometry and yield 100% sensitive-area-fill-factor arrays, limited in size only by the wafer diameter.

Electronic component improvements allow everyone to use them for performing new features in different applications. Lidar signal control is matter of continuous design and it can be studied in order to increase signal-to-noise ratio. Fortunately, the advent, of programmable gain amplifiers, switching capacitor filters and specific AD converters, is the stimulus of improving lidar signal quality. The main scope of this paper is to design and to realize a hardware simulator capable of reproducing the behavior of lidar signal control. This paper aims at describing the results of an automatic control system for Raman lidar signals. The system is based on the following units: laser source, damper, PMT (Photomultiplier), current - to - voltage converter, switched capacitor filter, programmable gain amplifier, A/D converter and FIR filter. This configuration allows the use of FIR filter that is not strictly necessary but it can help in adapting signal according to the amplitude. One of the main advantage of this system is to obtain a flexible and programmable board.

Using NOAA and MODIS (Terra & Aqua) satellites data, and mainly basing on 3×3 degree square as study area, the authors systematically analysis the effects of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) caused by 37 typhoons which passed by the Northwest Pacific Ocean from 2000 to 2008 and find: (1) In the Northwest Pacific Ocean area, the SST without typhoon is averagely 26.10°C, but the SST is averagely 22.90°C during typhoon happened. The SST averagely decreases 3.20°C with the drop rate of 11.55%, and the maximal fall of SST is 7.79°C by typhoon. At the same time, the sustaining time with low SST is usually 2~5 days, and the time mainly lies on the lingering time of typhoon in the sea areas. After typhoon, the SST comebacks to the normal level before typhoon had happened. This can be seen clearly from the change of the SST before and after typhoon SAOMAI and LEKIMA .(2) In the study area of typhoon SAOMAI and LEKIMA passed through, there are certain rightward bias of the distribution of the decrease of SST before and after typhoon. (3) The decrease of SST during typhoon is positive correlation with the wind speed and negative correlation with the moving speed of typhoon respectively and the correlation coefficient is less than 0.3, but it is better positive correlation with the weight of typhoon and the correlation coefficient rises to 0.47.In conclusion, the effect of SST by typhoon is notable, and based on remote sensing to study this effects is effective means.

The monsoon water cycle is the lifeline to over 60% of the world's population. The study on the behavioral change of Indian monsoon due to aerosol loading will help for the better understanding of Indian Monsoon. Aerosol system influences the atmosphere in two ways; it affects directly the radiation budget and indirectly provides condensation nuclei required for the clouds. The precipitation of the clouds in the monsoon season depends on the microphysical properties of the clouds. The effect of aerosol on cirrus clouds is being looked into through this work as an effort to study the role of aerosol on Indian Monsoon. The microphysical properties of high altitude clouds were obtained from the ground based lidar experiments at a low latitude station in the Indian subcontinent. Measurements during the Indian monsoon period from the inland station National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL) Gadanki (13.5_ N, 79.2_ E), Tirupati, India were used for the investigation. The depolarization characteristics of the cirrus clouds were measured and the correlation between the depolarization and the precipitation characteristics were studied. The results obtained over a period of one year from January 1998 to December 1998 were presented.

Polycrystalline ceramic with activator ions has already become popular material as laser medium. In this study, composite type rod which consisted with doped- and undoped-YAG sections was prepared for the laser experiments. By the improvement of pumping chamber, pulse energy of 930 mJ was obtained from oscillator with TEM00 in normal pulse mode at 10 Hz at room temperature. Giant pulse generation was carried out by inserting an AO Q-switch into the laser cavity. Because of the limitation of surface damage thresholds on the laser rod and the mirrors, the maximum output energy up to 21 mJ was obtained.

A deep-blue light source is useful for various vegetation studies because strong absorption features of chlorophyll a and b exist in this wavelength region. Second-harmonic generation of quasi-three-level Nd-doped lasers operating around 900 nm allows us to produce high-energy deep-blue light suitable for remote sensing of vegetation. Currently, we are developing a high-energy, Q-switched Nd:YVO4 laser operating at 914 nm. Preliminary experiments were performed in a four-level Nd:YAG laser operating at 1064 nm. An output energy of 42 mJ in a single Q-switched pulse with 11-ns pulse length was obtained for a incident pump energy of 653 mJ at 10 Hz.