Multimode beam propagation through atmospheric turbulence

Abstract

The investigation focuses on studying the propagation characteristics of multimode lasers in the turbulent amosphere. By employing the Huygens-Fresnel integral, we develop analytical formulations for various propagation parameters. These include the average intensity distribution, kurtosis parameter, beam spread, and the average transmittance of multimode beams in turbulent atmosphere. Our findings reveal that as the propagation distance or the structure constant of the atmosphere increases, i.e., turbulence becomes stronger, the kurtosis parameter and the beam spread increase. The multimode beam exhibits a Gaussian like intensity profile when the propagation distance is significantly increased or when the structure constant becomes sufficiently large. For the case of the Gaussian beam, the kurtosis parameter is found to be 3. The multimode beam's kurtosis parameter rises as the turbulence becomes stronger and eventually approaches 3. Raising the mode content leads to a rise in the average transmittance; however, it leads to a decline in the Kurtosis parameter and the beam spread.