Robust autofocusing propagation in turbulence

TL;DR

This study compares the stability of autofocusing beams and Gaussian beams in turbulent environments, showing autofocusing beams have superior stability, less fluctuation, and better coherence, making them suitable for complex optical applications.

Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive analysis demonstrating that autofocusing beams outperform Gaussian beams in turbulence, highlighting their potential for stable optical trapping and manipulation.

Findings

Autofocusing beams exhibit higher stability than Gaussian beams in turbulence.

Intensity fluctuations of autofocusing beams are significantly smaller.

Autofocusing beams maintain better coherence and less scintillation oscillation.

Abstract

We conducted a comprehensive study on the robust propagation of the same spot-size Gaussian beam (SSGB), same envelope Gaussian beam (SEGB), Circular Airy beam (CAB) and Circular Pearcey beam (CPB) in complex environments. Our findings clearly demonstrate that autofocusing beams exhibit higher stability in propagation compared with the Gaussian beams. To validate our results, we statistically analyze the intensity fluctuation of autofocusing beams and Gaussian beams. The analysis reveals that the intensity fluctuations of autofocusing beams are significantly smaller than that of Gaussian beams. Furthermore, we study the variation of the coherence factor and find that the coherence of autofocusing beams is better than that of Gaussian beams under turbulence. Additionally, we observe the change of the scintillation index (SI) with the propagation distance z, and our results show that autofocusing beams exhibit less oscillation than Gaussian beams, indicating that autofocusing beams propagate in complex environments with less distortion and fewer intensity fluctuation. Overall, our results suggest that autofocusing beams are promising for applications such as optical trapping and manipulation in complex environments. Our study provides valuable insights into the selection of stable beams that exhibit high intensity and high field gradient at the focal position in complex environments.