Design and implementation of a compact Raman-lidar for ozone and aerosol measurements

A Raman lidar for ozone and aerosol measurements, which was designed and built at Freie Universitat Berlin in Germany, was first employed and compared to other instruments in a collaborative field campaign in April 2003 in Mexico City. Three elastically scattered, two Raman-shifted signals and depolarization measure aerosols. Ozone is detected with the Raman-DIAL technique, making use of the Oxygen and Nitrogen Raman-shifted signals in the solar blind spectral region. Water vapour can be measured as well at concentrations high enough to be seen by Raman scattering. Special features and challenges of the design are the low signal to noise ratio of Raman measurements due to the low pulse energy of the diode-pumped 1 kHz laser and a four channel single shot detection at the full laser pulse rate of 1 kHz.