Abstract

Oxford is currently designing a scalable laser system to generate a sodium layer laser guide star (LGS) for astronomical adaptive optics. The emphasis in our design is upon an architecture that allows the average output power of the system to be increased arbitrarily without increasing peak power, and thus saturation level in the sodium layer. It is intended that in this way a system may be designed that, once installed, may be enlarged in the confidence that additional power launched will result in additional photons returned.

© 1996 Optical Society of America