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Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Characterizing Far-infrared Laser Emissions and the Measurement of Their Frequencies
Published on: December 18, 2015
Pulse compression of an FM chirped CO(2) laser
Abstract:
A CO(2) laser has been FM chirp modulated by a CdTe intracavity modulator. A frequency deviation-of-100 MHz in 2 micros was attained in this fashion. Following heterodyne detection the chirped pulse was compressed to 15 ns using a surface acoustic wave compression filter. This corresponded to a compression factor of 130. The suppression of unwanted sidelobes with a weighting filter was demonstrated. We have explored the use of this technique for laser radar systems and described an electrooptically FM modulated CO(2) waveguide laser with postdetection pulse compression by a surface acoustic wave compressive filter. To our knowledge this is the first report of the successful operation of this important system.

