Frequency-stabilized laser system at 1572 nm for space-borne CO2 detection LIDAR

A frequency-stabilized laser system at 1572 nm for space-borne carbon dioxide (CO2) detection LIDAR to realize the precise measurement of the global atmospheric CO2 concentration is presented in this Letter. A distributed-feedback laser diode serves as the master laser (ML) and is wavelength locked to the CO2 line center at 1572.0179 nm using the external frequency modulation technique. The root mean square frequency drift is suppressed to about 50 kHz at an average time of 0.1 s over 8 h. Based on optical phase-locked loops, an online seeder and an offline seeder are offset locked to the reference laser at 1572.024 and 1572.081 nm, respectively, retaining virtually the same frequency stability as the ML.