The design and construction of a long-distance atmospheric propagation test chamber

Abstract

The experiment for this thesis first involved using a laser modeling tool called ANCHOR to compare two 100kW lasers in a potential operational theater, one with a wavelength of 1.0642 μm, and the other with a wavelength of 1.5314 μm. This modeling illustrated that the laser’s effective range can be greatly reduced due to haze or humidity (or both), depending on its lasing wavelength. The second part of this thesis describes a multi-pass spectroscopic experimental setup that employs a White cell, which can be used to measure atmospheric extinction coefficients in a controlled manner. The first results from this setup produced consistent, comparable atmospheric extinction values.