Scintillation of Astigmatic Dark Hollow Beams in Weak Atmospheric Turbulence

Abstract

The scintillation properties of astigmatic dark hollow beams (DHBs) in weak atmospheric turbulence were investigated in detail. An explicit expression for the on-axis scintillation index of an astigmatic DH13 propagating in weak atmospheric turbulence was derived. It was found that the scintillation index value of an astigmatic DH13 with suitable astigmatism (i.e., ratio of the beam waist size in the x direction to that in the y direction), dark size, beam waist size, and wavelength can be smaller than that of a stigmatic DH13 and that of stigmatic and astigmatic flat-topped, annular, and Gaussian beams in weak atmospheric turbulence particularly at long propagation ranges. Our results will be useful in long-distance free-space optical communications. (c) 2008 Optical Society of America