High-Energy two-Colour Picosecond Nd:YAG Laser for Satellite Laser Ranging

Two-color pulsed laser source for Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) system would be an attractive tool to account for atmospheric propagation effects of SLR and is of interest for the next generation of global geodetic observing systems [1, 2]. In this work we report on a high-energy high repetition rate two-colour (1064 nm and 532 nm) picosecond Nd:YAG laser system. The maximum energy achieved in the developed system was 0.43 J and 0.3 J at 1064 nm and 532 nm wavelengths, respectively. The developed laser differs from analogues used in SLR systems Apache Point, McDonald and OCA [3] by higher energy and significantly higher pulse repetition rate of 200 Hz.