Potential NASA applications of the proposed compact single-frequency 2-micron laser transmitter include airborne demonstration systems for 3D winds and ASCENDS atmospheric CO2 measurement missions, as well as other NASA atmospheric spectroscopy efforts focused on the SWIR spectral region. The compact pulse-stretched transmitter developed in Phase II will match the wind measurement potential of the current NASA DAWN wind lidar operating at 100 mJ and 10 Hz, but in a much smaller and more reliable package. The fully-functional high-power SWIFT cw laser delivered at the end of Phase I will be immediately applicable to several 2.05 um NASA remote-sensing programs, and will be available as a product from BP soon after completion of the initial Phase I effort; similarly, the "nano-SWIFT" will reach product maturity by the end of Phase II. The innovations developed in this Phase I effort can inform ongoing and future NASA remote sensing programs, including 3D Winds, ASCENDS CO2 remote spectroscopy, and other programs requiring very compact, robust 2-micron lasers and associated photonic technology. We also see this technology benefitting systems for identifying and tracking orbital space debris and other hazards from space.
Non-NASA applications of the proposed single-frequency 2-micron long-pulse, Fourier-transform-limited Q-switched transmitter laser technologies begun in Phase I and further matured in Phase II include eye-safe wind energy management lidar (winds forecasting, wind farm energy extraction optimization, and gust-front prediction), aircraft wakes detection and analysis, drone-based remote sensing applications, greenhouse gas flux remote spectroscopy, and numerous Doppler winds applications. As noted above, the high-power and compacted SWIFT cw master oscillator sources would be made available commercially for numerous remotes sensing and spectroscopic applications. Actively pulse-stretched laser technology has potentially quite broad application across many commercial, industrial, scientific, and research fields, where very robust, very compact transform-limited laser energy is required; no commercially-available such lasers exist on the market at present.
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