Lidar, space communication, and the search for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations at the radiation wavelength of an iodine-photodissociation laser—1315 µm

Abstract

This paper discusses the possibilities of lidar, laser space communication, and the search for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, using iodine-photodissociation lasers, on the basis of which a virtually ideal receiver–transmitter pair with a quantum sensitivity limit has been created. This pair is capable of detecting signals consisting of only a few photons on the background of any natural source of thermal radiation and of emitting optical pulses of diffraction divergence with energy up to 10 J when operating in the pulsed-periodic regime and up to several kilojoules in single radiation pulses.