Multifractal characteristics of optical turbulence measured through a single beam holographic process

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that surface relief patterns on azopolymer films, created by coherent light passing through turbulent media, encode detailed multifractal information about the turbulence's dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a method to analyze turbulence characteristics using multifractal analysis of holographically recorded surface patterns.

Findings

Surface patterns contain multifractal signatures of turbulence.

Multifractal analysis reveals scaling properties linked to turbulence dynamics.

The method provides a new way to characterize optical turbulence.

Abstract

We have previously shown that azopolymer thin films exposed to coherent light that has travelled through a turbulent medium produces a surface relief grating containing information about the intensity of the turbulence; for instance, a relation between the refractive index structure constant C2 as a function of the surface parameters was obtained. In this work, we show that these films capture much more information about the turbulence dynamics. Multifractal detrended fluctuation and fractal dimension analysis from images of the surface roughness produced by the light on the azopolymer reveals scaling properties related to those of the optical turbulence.