Beam wander analysis for focused partially coherent beams propagating in turbulence

Abstract

Abstract. We extend the theory of beam wander for propagation through atmospheric turbulence to the case of a focused partially coherent beam (PCB). In addition to investigating the beam wander expression, we restate expressions for the beam size, long-and short-time average beam intensity profile, and the on-axis scintillation index of tracked and untracked beams. A wave optics simulation is implemented and the numerical results are compared with corresponding analytic results. The cases examined involve turbulence strengths ranging from C 2 n ¼ 10 −16 to 10 −14 m −2∕3 and for various horizontal paths ranging from 1 to 10 km. Although the extended analytic theory stems from a study of coherent beams, the simulation results show good agreement with the analytical results for PCBs in fluctuation regimes ranging from weak to intermediate.

Beam wander of electromagnetic Gaussian–Schell model beams propagating in atmospheric turbulence

“…In the past five decades, beam wander for a variety of beams with different shapes has been studied [9,10], including that of EGSM beams [11,12]. This subject was first discussed by Berman et al [11], who studied the beam wander of a linearly polarized EGSM beam by employing the photon distribution function.…”

Temporal spectrum of beam wander for Gaussian Schell-model beams propagating in atmospheric turbulence with finite outer scale

“…Note that the condition a 1 < a 2 ≪ 1 can be simplified to ω ≪ vκ −2 0 W 2 0 Δ 2 L −1∕2 for both collimated and divergent beams, and to ω ≪ vκ −2 0 W 2 0 Δ 2 ξ max L −1∕2 for convergent beams, where ΔξL with 0 ≤ ξ ≤ 1 is maximized at ξ ξ max . Equation (8) implies that S c ω in the low-frequency limit can be approximated by an expression in the form of a sum of three terms that are related to ω by C 4 C 5 , C 4 C 6 ω 4∕3 and −C 4 C 7 ω 2 , respectively. Thus, one can find that S c 0 is equal to C 4 C 5 and increases as either δ or L 0 enlarges with fixed values of other parameters.…”

“…Considerable effort has been devoted to the formulation of beam-wander variance for various types of optical beams [1][2][3][4][5][6]; the effect of the partial coherence of the source on the beam-wander variance was also studied by Berman et al [7], followed by Xiao and Voelz [8] and Yu et al [9]. The dynamics of beam wander are manifested in their temporal spectra.…”

Effect of the atmospheric turbulence on a special correlated radially polarized beam on propagation

“…In general, the atmospheric turbulence will cause the extra spreading beyond the diffraction, wander and scintillation of laser beams, which limits the performance in the previously mentioned applications. Thus, knowledge of the propagation behavior of light beams in atmospheric turbulence is utmost significant [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. It is known that decreasing spatial coherence and modulating polarization distribution of light beams are two effective methods to reduce the turbulence-induced degradation.…”