Abstract

The problem of scintillation of a laser beam because of atmospheric turbulence, which has previously-been studied for a horizontal propagation path, is studied in this paper for a path from a ground-based transmitter to a measurement point in space. The results are presented in terms of the log-amplitude variance C_l(0), from which the intensity variance can be computed. The log-amplitude variance is found to be separable into a strength factor C_l^s(0) associated with the use of a zero-diameter source, and an aperture factor which measures the reduction of C_l(0) caused by use of a large-aperture transmitter. Values of the aperture factor are calculated.

© 1967 Optical Society of America

Laser-Beam Scintillation in the Atmosphere

D. L. Fried and J. B. Seidman
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 57(2) 181-185 (1967)

Measurements of Laser-Beam Scintillation in the Atmosphere

D. L. Fried, G. E. Mevers, and M. P. Keister
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 57(6) 787-797 (1967)

Aperture Averaging of Scintillation

D. L. Fried
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 57(2) 169-175 (1967)

Scintillation in an Earth-to-Space Propagation Path

Peter O. Minott
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 62(7) 885-888 (1972)

Turbulence-induced scintillation on Gaussian-beam waves: theoretical predictions and observations from a laser-illuminated satellite

John D. Shelton
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 12(10) 2172-2181 (1995)