It has been realized that eye-safe 2-mum all-solid-state lasers are important laser sources for an accurate measurement of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Served as laser transmitters, they can be integrated into ground-based, airborne-base, and spaceborne-based CO2 Differential Absorption Lidars (DIALs) to accomplish the measurement. In addition, the lasers are also ideal laser pumping sources for a ZnGeP2 (ZGP) Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO) or an Optical Parametric Amplifier (OPA) to achieve tunable laser output in 3similar to5 mum. In this spectrum region, the other important greenhouse gases, water vapor (H2O), carbon monoxide (CO), and methane (CH4) in the atmosphere can be measured. In this paper, we report a diode-pumped, double-pulsed, Q-switched, eye-safe Ho:Tm:LuLF laser at 2.05 mum developed for ground-based and airborne-based CO2 Differential Absorption Lidars (DIALs). The technology can be easily transferred to a space-borne CO2 DIAL in the future. The total output pulse energy of the laser is 220 mJ and 204 mJ per pair of pulses at 2 Hz and at 10 Hz respectively. The related optical energy conversion efficiency is 6.7% and 5.9% respectively.
