Scintillation advantages of lowest order Bessel-Gaussian beams

Abstract

For a weak turbulence propagation environment, the scintillation index of the lowest order Bessel-Gaussian beams is formulated. Its triple and single integral versions are presented. Numerical evaluations show that at large source sizes and large width parameters, when compared at the same source size, Bessel-Gaussian beams tend to exhibit lower scintillations than the Gaussian beam scintillations. This advantage is lost however for excessively large width parameters and beyond certain propagation lengths. Large width parameters also cause rises and falls in the scintillation index of off-axis positions toward the edges of the received beam. Comparisons against the fundamental Gaussian beam are made on equal source size and equal power basis.