Chemical species measurements using lidar techniques
Document ID: 328
1 The Pennsylvania State University, Department of Electrical Engineering, University Park, PA, U.S.A.
Presented: 29th Review of Atmospheric Transmission Models Meeting
Museum of Our National Heritage, Lexington, Massachusetts, June 13 -14, 2007
invited paper
Abstract
Laser remote sensing techniques provide opportunities for measuring primary natural atmospheric species and can be used to detect several of the hazardous or toxic species introduced into the atmosphere or deposited onto surfaces. In recent years, interest has increase in developing sensors capable of detecting lower concentration levels of various species for applications in air pollution monitoring, and for warnings of the presence of hazardous chemicals. Current capabilities are examined for various approaches using remote sensing techniques to measure concentrations of a wide range of chemical species. Our efforts and those reported by several other laboratories focus on development of various applications of Raman and DIAL lidar techniques to measure atmospheric species. New optical devices and improved electronics are leading to advances in these lidar instruments and expanding our measurement capabilities. The recent advent of femtosecond lasers and their use with photonic crystal fibers to generate supercontinuum, or white-light, sources have opened new opportunities for monitoring chemical species. These laser sources open the possibility of applying the well-developed techniques of hyper-spectral remote sensing to new ways of measuring path concentrations of molecular species, while using a controlled radiation source instead of sunlight or incoherent light sources. Advances in the traditional techniques and several new opportunities for remote detection of various molecular species using resonance processes (resonance Raman and fluorescence) are also explored. Recent results, simulations and calculations are used to describe current capabilities, and indicate future directions for laser remote sensing.
| Citation: | "Chemical species measurements using lidar techniques", Philbrick, C. R., Proceedings 29th Review of Atmospheric Transmission Models Meeting, U.S. Air Force, 2007, pp. 1 - 7 |