Receiver-aperture averaging of annular beams propagating through turbulent atmosphere

Abstract

For an annular beam incidence, the power scintillation index in a weakly turbulent atmosphere is derived at the receiver plane, which has a Gaussian aperture. Employing this derivation, the receiver-aperture averaging factor is evaluated. Annular beams are found more advantageous than the Gaussian beams when compared on receiver-aperture averaging basis. The analyses indicate that the effect of the aperture averaging increases as the propagation length increases. Increase in the structure constant and the secondary beam source size is observed to strengthen the effect of the aperture averaging when the primary beam source size is fixed. (C) 2013 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)