Abstract
Rapid tuning of a 3-m long glow discharge excited CO2 laser is achieved by a rotating polygonal mirror scanning the intracavity beam across a diffraction grating. The system can tune through 110 different rotational lines spanning wavelengths from 9.2 to 11.1 μm in 3 ms with typical peak powers of 100–500 W at burst repetition rates up to 360 Hz and is suitable for airborne remote sensing. The effects of laser output coupler reflectance, burst rate, scan direction, and current modulation are investigated, and the performance of an optimized system for mineral reflectance measurements is presented. A reflection spectrum of a shale obtained with the rapidly tuned laser at a range of 5 m is shown to compare well to data gathered for the same sample using a slowly tuned cw CO2 laser.
© 1988 Optical Society of America
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