Intensity fluctuations of focused general-type beams in atmospheric optics links

Abstract

The intensity fluctuations of focused general-type beams in weakly turbulent atmospheric links are formulated and numerically evaluated. Focused general-type beams in general cover very large range of beams, however in this work we concentrate specifically on the focused sinusoidal-Gaussian, annular and flat-topped beams. The behavior of the scintillations for these beams is examined versus the focusing distance, wavelength of operation and the source size. In our formulation, atmospheric turbulence is introduced through the Rytov method where the free space field (i.e., in the absence of turbulence) at the receiver plane for the general-type focused beam is found by utilizing the Huygens-Fresnel principle. Figures are presented showing the scintillation index for focused general-type beams and collimated general-type beams. To find out the source and medium parameters that will yield favourable scintillation levels, the intensity fluctuations of the focused sinusoidal-Gaussian, annular and flat-topped beams are compared. Within the range of selected source and medium parameters, our observations indicate that the intensity fluctuations in weak turbulence tend to be the smallest for the focused flat-topped Gaussian beams and the largest for the focused cos-Gaussian beams. Gaussian, cosh-Gaussian and annular beams experience interim level fluctuations. The comparison of the scintillation levels for the mentioned types of focused beams follow the same tendency for all the propagation distances. Also, the intensity fluctuations of the focused general-type beams in turbulence are compared with their collimated counterparts. Such a comparison reveals that for all the beams at a selected source size, the scintillations are nearly the same for both the focused and the collimated cases at all the propagation distances, except for the flat-topped Gaussian beams. When focused flat-topped Gaussian beams are employed, the intensity fluctuations seem to be lower as compared to the equivalent collimated flat-topped Gaussian beam at shorter link lengths.