10.1117/1.OE.59.8.081805">
 

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-2020

Abstract

Part II of this two-part paper uses wave-optics simulations to look at the Monte Carlo averages associated with turbulence and time-dependent thermal blooming (TDTB). The goal is to investigate turbulence thermal blooming interaction (TTBI). At wavelengths near 1 μm, TTBI increases the amount of constructive and destructive interference (i.e., scintillation) that results from high-power laser beam propagation through distributed-volume atmospheric aberrations. As a result, we use the spherical-wave Rytov number, the number of wind-clearing periods, and the distortion number to gauge the strength of the simulated turbulence and TDTB. These parameters simply greatly given propagation paths with constant atmospheric conditions. In addition, we use the log-amplitude variance and the branch-point density to quantify the effects of TTBI. These metrics result from a point-source beacon being backpropagated from the target plane to the source plane through the simulated turbulence and TDTB. Overall, the results show that the log-amplitude variance and branch-point density increase significantly due to TTBI. This outcome poses a major problem for beam-control systems that perform phase compensation.

Comments

© The Author(s). Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. (CC BY 4.0) Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.

Dr. Spencer is co-affiliated with AFIT as an adjunct professor in the Dept. of Engineering Physics, and the Air Force Research Laboratory.

The Part I article is available by clicking here.

Source Publication

Optical Engineering

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