title: Pulse compression of an FM chirped CO(2) laser.
abstract: A CO(2) laser has been FM chirp modulated by a CdTe intracavity modulator. A frequency deviation-of-100 MHz in 2 micros was attained in this fashion. Following heterodyne detection the chirped pulse was compressed to 15 ns using a surface acoustic wave compression filter. This corresponded to a compression factor of 130. The suppression of unwanted sidelobes with a weighting filter was demonstrated. We have explored the use of this technique for laser radar systems and described an electrooptically FM modulated CO(2) waveguide laser with postdetection pulse compression by a surface acoustic wave compressive filter. To our knowledge this is the first report of the successful operation of this important system.
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Halmos
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Henderson
authors.forename: R L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Duvall Iii