Rugged and stable laser frequency locking and control systems have a wide variety of commercial and scientific applications. These include interferometric based distance measurements, atomic time standards, cw Doppler ladar, THz frequency generation, optical coherence tomography, and many more. The control system developed here will be generic and may be applied to all of these markets.
NASA has a long history using spectroscopic probes, for both Earth science and extraterrestrial missions. The majority of these past missions have not been tunable laser based. This is in part because the tunable laser locking and control technology has been immature. This project will significantly increase the maturity and availability of precision laser frequency locking and control systems, which will lower the barrier for using this technology in a wide array or future NASA missions. In addition to ASCENDS, these include Venture Class UAV missions, planetary rovers, free space optical communications, and many more.
More »