Optical circulator for an in-line-type compact lidar

The application of an optical circulator is demonstrated for an in-line-type lidar. The lidar's transmitter and receiver are installed in a telescope. The optical circulator of interest here can separate the transmitting laser beam and the echo lights on the same optical axis. It can also divide the echo lights simultaneously into orthogonally polarized components. An insertion loss of 2.2 dB and isolation of >60 dB for the developed optical circulator are obtained in a laser-transmitting situation. This optical circulator makes it possible to measure the polarization ratio caused by cloud phases with a narrow field of view in an in-line-type lidar operation. © 2002 Optical Society of America.