Redesign and improved performance of the tropospheric ozone lidar at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Table Mountain...

Improvements to the tropospheric ozone lidar at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Table Mountain Facility for measurements of ozone profiles in the troposphere and lower stratosphere, between approximately 5-and 20-km altitude, are described. The changes were primarily related to the receiver optical subsystems and the data-acquisition system. The original 40-cm Cassegrain telescope was replaced with a faster (f/3) 91-cm Newtonian mirror. In the focal plane of this mirror, the lidar signal is divided into two parts by use of two separate optical fibers as field stops corresponding to different but neighboring 0.6-mrad fields of view. We then separate the two received wavelengths by aligning each transmitted beam to one of the fibers. In addition, two 50-mm telescopes are used for the collection of near-range returns. The four optical signals are brought to a chopper wheel for independent signal selection in the time and range domain. For each channel, an interference filter is used for skylight rejection and additional cross-talk prevention. The signals are detected with miniature photomultiplier tubes and input to a fast photon-counting system. The goals of these modifications were to increase the spatial and temporal resolution of the lidar, to extend the altitude range covered, to improve the quality of the raw data, and to enable regular and routine operation of the system for long-term measurements.