Why is this scientist smiling? Read the meter: 981mJ GREEN @ 30Hz. Game on! #lidar

 

Well after a very long time the Crows are happy to report that we appear to have our laser issues resolved and we are hoping to be able to resume routine operations with our new transmitter. As the meter shows we are getting close to 1 J per pulse (@ 30 Hz) of green light from our new YAG. We were here before last March, but got stymied as the power quickly decayed. This problem appeared to be due to heat building up inside the system. Litron solved this problem by designing new covers with exhaust fans. There were also some internal times issues that appear to be resolved. We were also able to try our new beam expander, and it looks like we don't have any serious clipping issues (the beam was a bit larger than anticipated, but fixing the timing issues and changing lamps got us back to its nominal value).

Needless to see we are very happy and can get back to work, but without Crow Emily for a bit. She is up in Eureka working with the CANDAC CRL lidar system until April. We'll keep you posted on that.

See a few more snaps from the install here.

Robin caught the first light of our new 1000mJ green beam into the night sky. Check it out here:

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Long, long day (week!) but we got some light up into the sky! 1000 mJ @ 30 Hz (30 W) of green at 532 from our new Litron YAG. Well done Crows!

Getting our green on at the PCL. Day 1 of the laser install. Check out first light here:

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Starting to get some green light out of the new laser. This first flash of green was at "low" power (390 mW of green at 30 Hz). Check the afterglow on the camera, I though I burned out my phone's retinal display (more realistic, right, you are supposed to have a hole in your retina!).

Our New Nd:YAG laser has arrived! 1000 mJ/pulse @ 30Hz, 532 nm #westernu

Ohhh it has been a LOOONNNGGGG wait but the PCL has taken a big step towards getting back in action. Our new laser was trucked in today and Emily and Robin were there to meet it. Fortunately for them so were Caroline from the Western Environmental Field Station and several real nice folks from the ICFAR lab with strong backs and a forklift. As you can see in the picture they were certainly needed. I thought 2 people would be able to lift the laser head, but it was hard to get it on the table with 5! We are hoping to get it operational Monday and have our fingers crossed it will robustly meet its spec of 1000 mJ/pulse at 30 Hz in the green.

More to follow!

Bob

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