Abstract

The effects of finite laser bandwidth can cause very large errors in range-resolved measurements of differential absorption (DIAL) and, therefore, must be acccounted for accurately. No method of solution to this problem has been reported for the case of pure elastic scattering. In addition, processes which redistribute the frequencies of photons during scattering have not previously been considered for DIAL experiments. This paper describes a general method of solution for treating the effects of finite laser bandwidth in DIAL experiments with pure elastic scattering. In addition, methods for treating the problem of Rayleigh scattering, which redistributes the photon frequencies, are considered.