Sensitive infrared detection through efficient pulsed upconversion for remote sensing applications

Infrared spectroscopic measurements are a key tool for species identification and substance detection. Growing importance falls to the mid-infrared 3-12 mm range, where strong, fundamental spectroscopic features are found. One issue especially in stand-off remote sensing scenarios with low-intensity backscattered signals is the limited sensitivity of available detectors for the (MIR) wavelength range. Upconversion of MIR radiation by nonlinear-optical sum frequency generation towards detection in the near near-infrared (NIR) range has been demonstrated as an approach to overcome this limitation [1].