2µm laser solutions for LIDAR applications

Lasers operating in the IR ‘eye-safe’ wavelength range above 1400nm are very attractive for all sorts of free space applications where the operating environment isn’t guaranteed to be free from human presence.

Applications include gas sensing for environmental and pollution monitoring in cities, direct optical communications for field-based or satellite communications networks, materials processing, biomedicine, and LIDAR.

LIDAR has long been heralded as a necessity for autonomous driving but is also already used in many other applications today. It mainly operates in the shorter IR range <1.1µm, but longer wavelengths have a great advantage. The 2µm range is ideal for novel techniques for measuring wind speed thanks to the absorption peaks for CO2, N2O and other gasses, while also having a relatively low atmospheric absorption rate allowing for longer-range sensing. Thanks to more robust and turn-key fibre lasers, these applications are rapidly growing.

LASER COMPONENTS is pleased to offer a wide range of Tm-doped fibre lasers and amplifiers ideal for these various applications. The BEACON-2000 is a quasi-cw, high-power, pulsed fibre laser, with power reaching 20W. The laser delivers pulses from 250µs to 5ms over a wide range of repetition rates from 100Hz to 2kHz. Other narrow linewidth fibre lasers are also available at this wavelength such as the MAKO-NL series, which can achieve linewidths down to 10kHz with great wavelength and power stability.

Fibre lasers, amplifiers and ASE sources are also available for 1µm, 1.5µm and 2µm with various form factors to suit any application.