Influence of Phase Diffuser Dynamics on Scintillations of Laser Radiation in Earth Atmosphere: Long-Distance Propagation

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the dynamics of a phase diffuser affect laser light scintillations over long distances in the Earth's atmosphere, revealing that finite-time phase variations can reduce scintillation suppression.

Contribution

It provides an explicit dependence of the scintillation index on finite-time phase variations, enhancing understanding of phase diffuser effects in long-distance laser propagation.

Findings

Finite-time phase variations decrease scintillation suppression at large phase fluctuation amplitudes.

Explicit dependence of scintillation index on phase diffuser dynamics is derived.

Phase diffuser effectiveness is limited by its temporal phase variation characteristics.

Abstract

The effect of a random phase diffuser on fluctuations of laser light (scintillations) is studied. Not only spatial but also temporal phase variations introduced by the phase diffuser are analyzed. The explicit dependence of the scintillation index on finite-time phase variations is obtained for long propagation paths. It is shown that for large amplitudes of phase fluctuations, a finite-time effect decreases the ability of phase diffuser to suppress the scintillations.