Construction and Characterization of a Pump Source for a Microchip Laser for Space Applications

In the context of an apparent increasing interest in remote exploration of rocky celestial bodies, a pulsed microchip laser for time-of-flight range finding applications is under development. This paper addresses the design construction and testing of the pump source for this laser unit. Considering the small mass, miniature size and high pump power the space application requires, open emitter semiconductor lasers become the only real option as a main pumping source. However, this type of geometry is limited by a beam profile with significantly different divergence values on the fast and slow axes. We endeavoured to correct this issue by collimating each of the axis independently. After a design and simulation stage, the lenses were mounted in front of the main pump source with the aid of a custom made wavefront sensor.