Reduction of laser intensity scintillations in turbulent atmospheres using time averaging of a partially coherent beam

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that using a partially coherent beam combined with time averaging significantly reduces laser intensity scintillations caused by atmospheric turbulence, supported by experiments and simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel combination of partially coherent beams and time averaging to effectively reduce scintillations in turbulent atmospheres.

Findings

Significant reduction in scintillation index with PCB and time averaging

Good agreement between experimental results and numerical simulations

Insights into effects of speckle size and turbulence strength

Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally and numerically that the application of a partially coherent beam (PCB) in combination with time averaging leads to a significant reduction in the scintillation index. We use a simplified experimental approach in which the atmospheric turbulence is simulated by a phase diffuser. The role of the speckle size, the amplitude of the phase modulation, and the strength of the atmospheric turbulence are examined. We obtain good agreement between our numerical simulations and our experimental results. This study provides a useful foundation for future applications of PCB-based methods of scintillation reduction in physical atmospheres.