Lidar sensing of the atmosphere with gigawatt laser pulses of femtosecond duration

We present the results of sensing of the atmosphere in the condition of a transition 'continent – ocean' zone by means of gigawatt femtosecond pulses of the fundamental and second harmonics of a Ti : sapphire laser. In the regime of multi-frequency sensing (supercontinuum from the fundamental harmonic) the emission lines of the first positive system of the nitrogen molecule B³Π_g – A³Σ_u⁺ have been recorded, while the sensing using of the second harmonic have revealed the possibility of detecting the lines of Raman scattering of nitrogen (λ = 441 nm). The intensity ratio of the line of Raman scattering of nitrogen and the line of elastic scattering at the wavelength of λ = 400 nm amounts to 5.6 × 10^-4.