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Seeded nanosecond optical parametric generator for trace gas measurements

Article  in  Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering · February 2010
DOI: 10.1117/12.843747

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 Seeded nanosecond optical parametric generator
for trace gas measurements
Kenji Numata1,a, Steve Li, Haris Riris, Stewart Wu, Antonios Seas,
Anthony Yu, Michael Krainak, James Abshire
a
Dept. of Astronomy, Univ. of Maryland, College Park MD, USA 20742;
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt MD, USA 20771

ABSTRACT

We report on the development effort of a nanosecond-pulsed seeded optical parametric generator (OPG) for remote trace
gas measurements. The seeded OPG output light is single frequency with high spectral purity and is widely tunable both
at 1600nm and 3300nm with an optical-optical conversion efficiency of ~40%. We demonstrated simultaneous tuning
over the methane (CH4) absorption line at idler wavelength, 3270.4nm, and carbon dioxide (CO2) absorption line at
signal wavelength, 1578.2nm. In this paper, we will also discuss open-path atmospheric measurements with this newly
developed laser source.
Keywords: Optical Parametric Generator, Lidar, DIAL, Space Instrumentation

1. INTRODUCTION
Laser remote sensing measurements of trace gases from orbit can provide unprecedented information about important
planetary science and answers to critical questions on planetary atmospheres. Remote measurements of methane (CH4),
water (H2O), and other biogenic molecules (such as ethane and formaldehyde) on Mars have important connections to
questions related to the existence of life on Mars [1]. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and CH4 are very important greenhouse
gases on Earth. Remote sensing of these gases will assist in understanding Earth climate change. However, traditional
passive spectrometers are restricted to the sunlit side of the planets and mid latitudes, and they have low spectral and
spatial resolutions. In order to map these gases globally through DIAL (differential absorption lidar) measurements with
much higher accuracies, we are developing a mid-infrared (MIR) and near-infrared (NIR) lidar transmitter. The Mars
and Earth trace gases have suitable spectral absorption features in the MIR (3μm~4μm) and the NIR (1.5μm~1.6μm)
regions, respectively. Using our tunable laser transmitter and high sensitivity detectors at MIR and/or NIR in a sounding
(surface reflection) mode enables DIAL measurements from orbit with modest laser power.
Our transmitter system is based on an optical parametric generator (OPG) pumped at 1064nm. The OPG is suited for this
application since it has sufficient wavelength tuning range for gas detections and it generates both MIR and NIR, where
there is no traditional laser that has high spectral purity, sufficient pulse energy, and tuning capability. The output
wavelength tuning can be performed by tuning a seed laser in the OPG. Our OPG approach is simpler than an optical
parametric oscillator (OPO) approach [2], because there is no cavity and no complicated mode managements. Also our
approach may be an alternative to the NIR fiber power amplifier approach [3], where high peak power cannot be
obtained easily due to nonlinear effects, such as stimulated Brillouin scattering. The OPG approach will allow a new
capability for general planetary lidar instruments.
In this paper, we report on the development effort of a nanosecond-pulsed seeded optical parametric generator (OPG).
We describe the experimental setup, gas measurement results, and future prospects in the following sections.

2. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
Figure 1 shows the experiment diagram. A nonlinear crystal is pumped by a pulsed 1064nm Nd:YAG and seeded by a
continuous-wave (CW) ~1.6μm laser. The generated idler (~3.2μm) and signal (amplified seed at ~1.6μm) pulses are

1
kenji.numata@nasa.gov; phone 1 301-286-0799

Nonlinear Frequency Generation and Conversion: Materials, Devices, and Applications IX,
edited by Peter E. Powers, Proc. of SPIE Vol. 7582, 75820K · © 2010 SPIE
CCC code: 0277-786X/10/$18 · doi: 10.1117/12.843747

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 used for gas measurements at the MIR and the NIR, respectively. A similar experimental arrangement can be found, for
example, in Reference [4] and [5].
Q-switch
Nd:YAG NPRO Pump MgO:PPLN crystal Used for gas sensing
1064nm DM DM Idler
~3270nm
L Signal
Oven
DM (amplified seed)
Seed
~1578nm Residual pump
Used for trigger
COL
DFB-LD EDFA

Figure 1. Experiment diagram. A MgO:PPLN crystal is pumped and seeded by a Q-switch Nd:YAG NPRO and a
DFB LD, respectively. The idler and the signal are used for gas sensing. EDFA: Erbium-doped fiber amplifier,
DM: dichroic mirror, L: lens, COL: collimator.
2.1 Pump source
The pump source is a passively Q-switched, Nd:YAG non-planar ring oscillator (NPRO) made by Innolight Inc.
(Germany) that emits single-frequency output at 1064.5nm. It has 3.3-nsec pulse width and 60-μJ energy at 6-kHz
repetition rate. The optical linewidth of the NPRO is transform limited (~133MHz). Even without the seed, the pump
source power exceeds the threshold of OPG.
2.2 Seed source
The seed source is a CW, fiber-coupled, distributed-feedback (DFB) laser diode (LD). The wavelengths of DFB LDs are
selected between 1530nm and 1660nm depending on target gases. The DFB LD can be smoothly tuned through a wide
range (>0.25nm/30GHz) without a mode hop through current modulation. As a result, the output idler and signal can be
tuned without a mode hop across the absorption peaks of the target gases. The linewidth of DFB LD is less than 1MHz.
We observed that use of higher seed optical power ensures smooth tuning as well as high efficiency. This is because an
amplified vacuum fluctuation and/or an OPO caused by small optical feedbacks may obscure the amplified seed when
the seed power is low or the seed is not aligned perfectly. Therefore, we used a minimum seed power of ~10mW. When
we used a 1530nm~1580nm LD, we amplified the seed to ~200mW level using an Erbium-doped fiber amplifier. In this
paper, we report on results with a 1578.2-nm LD for the signal that results in an idler at 3270.4-nm. With this system, we
can simultaneously tune through the 1578.2-nm CO2 absorption line with the signal and the 3270.4-nm CH4 absorption
line with the idler.
The seed beam is co-aligned to the pump by a dichroic mirror. Divergences of the pump and the seed are adjusted to be
identical. The beams are focused down to a crystal by a lens with focal length of 150mm. Resultant beam radii inside the
crystal are ~25μm and ~35μm for the pump and the seed, respectively.
2.3 OPG crystal
The OPG crystal is 50-mm long, 1-mm thick, MgO-doped periodically-poled lithium niobate (PPLN) with 4 grating
channels (30.0~31.5μm). The end surfaces of the crystal were angled at 5° and AR coated at the pump, the signal and the
idler wavelengths, in order to minimize optical feedback due to reflections. The temperature of the crystal is tuned
between 70°C and 170°C to optimize the phase matching at target wavelength. For the 1578.2nm seed, the phase
matching is obtained at 119°C with 30.5μm grating.
2.4 Gas measurement systems
The output beam is separated into three paths using dichroic mirrors. The signal and the idler are used for gas detection
through gas cells (5cm~700cm) or through open-paths with reflective hard targets set at 205m and 1500m away. The
signal and the idler are detected by InGaAs and HgCdZnTe detectors, respectively. The pulsed signals are averaged by
boxcar averagers triggered by the residual pump pulse. For the open-path measurements, the signal and the idler are
coupled into multimode fibers made of silica and chalcogenide glass, respectively, with >60% coupling efficiency. The
fiber-coupled lights go out to open-path through independent beam expanders. The return beams reflected by the hard
targets are received by 20-cm reflective telescopes with protective aluminum coatings.

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 3. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
3.1 Tuning range
Figure 2 shows the signal tuning by changing the crystal’s grating period and temperature. The center wavelength of
unseeded OPG spectra was tuned from 1520nm to 1770nm (instrument limited). The corresponding tuning range of the
idler was 2670nm ~ 3550nm. The full-width half-maximum of the unseeded OPG spectra was about 2nm at 1578.2nm.
Once seeded within the gain bandwidth, the output spectrum collapsed to the seed wavelength with >20dB suppression.
-10
Seeded at 1578.2nm
-20
Power [a.u.]

-30

-40
70ºC
30.5µm 90ºC
-50
30.0µm 31.0µm 31.5µm 110ºC
-60 119ºC
130ºC
-70 150ºC
170ºC
-80
1520 1540 1560 1580 1600 1620 1640 1660 1680 1700 1720 1740 1760
Wavelength [nm]

Figure 2. Signal tuning by changing period and temperature of MgO:PPLN crystal. Unseeded OPG spectra and
seeded OPG spectrum at 1578.2nm are shown.
3.2 Output energy and efficiency
Figure 3 shows the relationship between pump energies, signal energies, and seed powers. With a 42-μJ pump and a
393-mW seed at 1578.2nm, we got ~10.8-μJ signal and corresponding idler of ~5.2μJ. Thus, total pump conversion
efficiency was (10.8μJ+5.2μJ)/42μJ~38%. When there was no back-conversion, the relationship agreed well with theory
[6] (blue curve in Fig. 3, left).
12
10 393.6mW seed
Signal energy [µJ]

Signal energy [µJ]

37.2mW seed 10
8 8.7mW seed ( fit)
8
6
6

4 4
Pump energy: 42µJ
2 2 Measured

0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Pump energy [µJ] Seed power [mW]

Figure 3. Relationship between signal and pump energies at different seed power levels. Left: pump energy vs.
signal energy. Right: seed power vs. signal energy at 42-μJ pump energy.
3.3 Output optical spectrum and pulse shape
Figure 4 shows temporal pulse shapes of the generated signal and the residual pump. When the pump energy was low
(left), the center of the pump pulse was depleted and converted into the signal and the idler. The signal had ~2-nsec
width and near Gaussian pulse shape. We believe that, when the pump energy was high (right), the signal and the idler
were converted back and forth between 1064nm, and that the back-conversion resulted in the distorted signal pulse.
3.0 2.0 3.0 2.0
Pump Pump: ~20µJ Pump Pump: ~40µJ
2.5 2.5 Signal
Signal Seed: 294mW 1.5 Seed: 294mW 1.5
Signal [a.u.]

Signal [a.u.]
Pump [a.u.]

Pump [a.u.]

2.0 Signal: 1.78µJ 2.0 Signal: 10.6µJ

1.5 1.0 1.5 1.0

1.0 1.0
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

-4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [nsec] Time [nsec]

Figure 4. Pulse shapes of signal and residual pump. Left: low pump energy. Right: high pump energy.

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 Figure 5 shows the detailed optical spectrum of the signal measured with a 2-GHz free spectral range scanning Fabry-
Perot etalon. When the pump energy was low, the linewidth of signal was measured to be ~300MHz. When the pump
energy was high, it was broadened to ~500MHz mainly due to the back-conversion processes.
0.14
Full pump energy (~42uJ)
0.12 Reduced pump energy (~35uJ)

Amplitude
0.10

0.08

0.06

0.04
0.02

0.00
-1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
Frequency [GHz]

Figure 5. Optical spectrum of signal. Red: full pump energy, Blue: reduced pump energy.
3.4 Gas cell scans
Figure 6 shows the gas cell scan result. In this example, while the seed laser was scanned, the signal and the idler were
put into CO2 (540cm, 100%, 100Torr) and CH4 (5cm, 100%, 1Torr), respectively. Two different gases were detected
simultaneously by scanning the seed laser current.

1.0
Transmittance

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
-0.12 -0.10 -0.08 -0.06 -0.04 -0.02 0.00 0.02 0.04
Scan voltage [V]

Figure 6. Simultaneous scan of CO2 and CH4 in gas cells. Blue: CO2 scan by signal, Red: CH4 scan by idler.
Figures 7 and 8 show the detailed scan results with theoretical predictions including instrument linewidths. The
experimental results were well described by the OPG’s broadened linewidth. The Gaussian instrument linewidths used
for this comparison were 300MHz and 500MHz for low and high pump (signal) energies, respectively. Because the
pressure of CO2 was higher than CH4’s by 100 times, the effect of the instrument linewidth in CO2 measurement was
smaller than CH4. Peak powers of signal and idler were estimated to be >3kW and >1.5kW, respectively. Thus, they
were sufficiently attenuated in these measurements in order to stay within linear range of the detectors.

1.0
Transmittance

0.8
Experiment
0.6 11.0uJ signal
2.75uJ signal
0.4
Theory (CO2, 100%, 100Torr, 300K, 540cm)
Lineshape
0.2 300MHz laser linewidth
500MHz laser linewidth
0.0
1578.200 1578.210 1578.220 1578.230 1578.240
Wavelength [nm]

Figure 7. CO2 gas cell scan using signal changing pump energy.

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 1.0

Transmittance
0.8
Experiment
0.6 5.32µJ idler
1.82µJ idler
0.4
Theory (CH4, 100%, 1Torr, 300K, 5cm)
Lineshape
0.2
300MHz laser linewidth
500MHz laser linewidth
0.0
3270.28 3270.32 3270.36 3270.40 3270.44 3270.48
Wavelength [nm]

Figure 8. CH4 gas cell scan using idler changing pump energy.
3.5 Open path scans
Figures 9 and 10 show the CO2 and CH4 open-path scans separately, together with corresponding theoretical curves. The
theoretical curves were calculated with concentrations of 1.75-ppm CH4, 383-ppm CO2, and 2.5-% H2O. The baseline
were subtracted from the measured data. The measured results agreed very well with the theory. The effect of the
instrument linewidth was marginal, since the atmospheric pressure was high (~760Torr).

1.0
Transmittance

0.8

0.6

0.4 Experiment

0.2 Theory (CO2, 383ppm, 300K, 3km, 760Torr)

0.0
1578.16 1578.18 1578.20 1578.22 1578.24 1578.26 1578.28 1578.30
Wavelength [nm]

Figure 9. CO2 open-path scan using signal (3-km roundtrip).

1.0 Experiment
Transmittance

0.8 Theory (CH4, 1.745ppm, 300K, 410m, 760Torr)

With 2.5% H2O
Without H2O
0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
3270.0 3270.1 3270.2 3270.3 3270.4 3270.5 3270.6 3270.7 3270.8 3270.9
Wavelength [nm]

Figure 10. CH4 (and H2O) open-path scan using idler (410-m roundtrip).
3.6 Other measurements
After proper tuning of PPLN crystal and selections of seed LD, we performed a 1650.9-nm CH4 line scan using the 3-km
open path, a 2996-nm H2O line scan using a gas cell, and an atmospheric CO2 profiling at 1572.3nm using aerosol
backscatters. They all agreed well with theory, confirming wide tuning capabilities of our seeded OPG approach.

4. DISCUSSIONS
We will use our OPG system to perform an airborne demo of CH4 and/or CO2 DIAL measurements in the near future.
For NIR lines, standard photo-multipliers should be able to detect a strong return signal from the earth surface from a
few km altitudes. For MIR lines, since the absorptions are so strong that we have to fly high enough (~13km), where
pressure is low, and use backscatters from clouds. For MIR detectors for such flight demo, we are testing a HgCdTe
array detector used in the Hubble Space Telescope and an infrared HgCdTe avalanche photodiode (APD). We are also

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 building an upconversion detector, where 3μm is frequency up-converted to 0.8μm by a PPLN crystal pumped at
1064nm through a sum-frequency generation process [7]. The 0.8-μm light can be detected by an APD.
For satellite-based instruments at few 100-km altitudes, our ~10-μJ output energy has to be scaled up by a factor of ~100.
At this moment, our output energy is limited by the pump energy (~40μJ). Since this OPG approach should be scalable
to a higher output power as long as the crystal is not damaged, we are looking into injection seeded NPROs, waveguide
amplifiers, and other types of Nd:YAG high energy lasers, in order to boost the pump energy to >1-mJ level. Back-
conversion would lead to spectral broadening and may obscure detailed spectral features of low pressure atmospheres.
For example, the Doppler width of a CH4 line at 3270.4nm is ~240MHz at Martian atmosphere (~5Torr at the surface).
In order to keep the laser linewidth at least at the same level as the Doppler width, we might need to make our OPG
multiple stages and amplify a signal and/or an idler separately, using a longer pump pulse (~10nsec). For Earth
atmosphere, we wouldn’t need this since the pressure is much higher (~760Torr at the surface).

5. CONCLUSIONS
Lidar will be a key technology for the measurement of atmospheric gases on global scales with high sensitivity and
resolution, and it will enhance our understanding of the current state of planetary atmospheres and geology. We have
demonstrated in our laboratory the ability to detect atmospheric trace gases both in the NIR and the MIR regimes, where
traditional lasers cannot reach, using a tunable seeded OPG. Given a sufficient tuning range of the seeded OPG, the
measurements can be extended to many other molecules. The smooth and rapid tuning capability will allow us to use
alternating wavelength every other shot in DIAL measurements. Our instruments have a high conversion efficiency
(~40%), a high peak power output (~kW), and a scalability to mJ level. Since our system is less alignment sensitive, it
can be implemented by naturally enhancing existing Nd:YAG space laser instruments. We believe our approach will
become a core technology in the future planetary DIAL instruments.
This work is supported by the NASA Astrobiology Program's Astrobiology Science and Technology Instrument
Development (ASTID) Program.

REFERENCES

[1] G.L. Villanueva, M.J. Mumma, and R.E. Novak, “Strong release of methane on Mars: Evidence of biology or
geology?,” 19th Annual VM Goldschmidt Conference, Davos, Switzerland, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta,
73(13) , A1384 (2009).
[2] A.W. Yu, K. Numata, H. Riris, J.B. Abshire, G. Allan, X. Sun, and M.A. Krainak, “Mid-Infrared OPO for high
resolution measurements of trace gases in the Mars atmosphere,” in Laser Applications to Chemical, Security and
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[5] T.A. Reichardt, R.P. Bambha, T.J. Kulp, and R.L. Schmitt, "Frequency-Locked, injection-Seeded, pulsed
narrowband optical parametric generator," Appl. Opt., 42(18), 3564 (2003).
[6] A. Chiang, T. Wang, Y. Lin, C. Lau, Y. Chen, B. Wong, Y. Huang, J. Shy, Y. Lan, Y. Chen, and P. Tsao, “Pulsed
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[7] M. Imaki and T. Kobayashi, "Infrared frequency upconverter for high-sensitivity imaging of gas plumes," Opt. Lett.,
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