On the temperature stability requirements of free-running Nd:YAG lasers for atmospheric temperature profiling through the rotational Raman technique

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

We assess the temperature stability requirements of unseeded Nd:YAG lasers in lidar systems for atmospheric temperature profiling through the rotational Raman technique. Taking as a reference a system using a seeded laser assumed to emit pulses of negligible spectral width and wavelength-drift free, we estimate first the effect of the pulse spectral widening of the unseeded laser on the output of the interference filters, then we derive the limits of the allowable wavelength drift for a given bias in the temperature measurement that would add to the noise-induced uncertainty. Finally, using spectroscopic data, we relate the allowable wavelength drift to allowable temperature variations of the YAG rod. We find that, in order to keep the bias affecting atmospheric temperature measurements smaller than 1 K, the Nd:YAG rod temperature should also be kept within 1 K.