Feasibility of Using Integrated Cavity Output Spectroscopy (ICOS) for Laser Scattering Research

ICOS is proving to be a successful method for accurately measuring the atmospheric absorbance of a laser beam in a simulated environment. It was hypothesized that ICOS could be sensitive enough to accurately measure Rayleigh scattering. If feasible, it would mean that instead of having to conduct open range propagation experiments, scattering losses could be determined using a small, controlled test bed. This would be advantageous because it is cumbersome to propagate a laser beam a long distance in open space, as most other methods require. This study, done by Emily Sotelo as a student intern at the Air Force Research Laboratory, will be applied to the ongoing research of the scalability potential of the DPAL laser.