For this project, I invented a new range resolution technique for CW lasers. This involves scanning the 10W CW beam over 1.5degrees repeating at 1 KHz and aligning the forward scan with a 32 channel linear array PMT/range-resolved counter board, Licel sp32, originally designed for lidar range-resolved spectroscopy. During each scan, the image of the beam is aligned with each photocathode for 20usec, yielding about 3km range resolution.

During research flight 17 on July 5, 2014, we saw a nice example of a descending Na layer observed in both the normal pulsed beam (3km full width square pulse) and the scanned beam (~3km FWHM). The scanned beam has higher signal levels but worse range resolution, as expected.