Propagation properties of quantized Laguerre-Gaussian beams in atmospheric turbulence

摘要

The effect of scintillation is a serious problems in optical systems that require atmospheric propagation. Optimization of optical systems to minimize the effects of scintillation has been examined using simulations of propagation in atmospheric turbulence. Analytic studies of the scintillation index of Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beams showed that LG beams have less scintillation than Gaussian beams. However, in these studies, the receiving aperture was set as a point receiver, and the effects of aperture averaging, a phenomenon that reduce scintillation over a finite aperture, were not considered. In this paper, considering the size of the receiving aperture, the propagation loss and scintillation index of LG beams are simulated. In addition, for practical applications, the propagation properties of "quantized" LG(5,1) beams are simulated. The propagation loss and scintillation index of LG beams are found to be smaller than those of Gaussian beams. Applying LG beams instead of Gaussian beams in optical wireless communications is expected to reduce the effects of scintillation. Further, the scintillation index of quantized LG beams is found to be equal to that of LG beams, which suggests that quantized LG beams can be treated as ideal LG beams.