Wave optics simulation of pseudo-partially coherent beam propagation through turbulence: application to laser communications

It is known that partially (spatial) coherent beams can reduce the effects of scintillation in a free space optical link. However, practical implementations of this type of beam are still under investigation. In this work we apply a wave optics model to analyze the propagation through turbulence of a coherent beam and a particular version of a pseudo-partially coherent beam. The beam we study is created with a sequence of five Gaussian random phase screens for each atmospheric realization. We examine the average intensity profiles, the scintillation index and aperture averaging factor for a horizontal propagation scenario. We find this pseudo-partially coherent beam behaves much like a Gaussian Schell-model beam.

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