Experimental Verification of a Diffraction Limited Lidar

Traditional visible lidars are far from diffraction limited. Transmitter and receiver are not exactly matched. A diffraction limited system provides for a lower background and a return signal better suited for analysis by high resolution interferometers or even heterodyning. A diffraction limited system will in general have a range weighting different from the simple 1/z2 -dependence. Strong focusing may be encountered. They are also considered to be much more susceptible to optical refractive turbulence.