Abstract

Differential absorption and scattering lidar measurements exhibit inherent calibration. This is due to the structure of the lidar equation and to the fact that its inversion results in an expression for the concentration n(x) of the absorbing gas that is independent of lidar system parameters such as receiver area, optical system transmittance and detector quantum efficiency: Apart from laboratory measurements of the absorption cross sections σ at the on-resonance wavelength λ₁ and the off-resonance wavelength λ₀ only the power p(x,λ₀) and P(x,λ₁) of the backscattered radiation must be measured.

© 1985 Optical Society of America