Ice thickness measurements by Raman scattering

Abstract

A compact Raman LIDAR system with a spectrograph was used for express ice thickness measurements. The difference between the Raman spectra of ice and liquid water is employed to locate the ice-water interface while elastic scattering was used for air--ice surface detection. This approach yields an error of only 2 mm for an 80 mm thick ice sample, indicating that it is a promising express noncontact thickness measurements technique in field experiments.