Depolarization of an Uncollimated Laser Beam in a Turbulent Medium

✍ Scribed by F.C. Chang; H. Mott; W.E. Webb

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1973
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 643 KB
• Volume: 296
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-0032
• DOI: 10.1016/0016-0032(73)90214-7

✦ Synopsis

The depolarization of a beam wave, with Gaussian intensity dietribution and arbitrary divergence, propagating in a turbulent medium is considered. The correlation function of the depolarized component of the beam is determined. The mean-square depolarization f8uctuation is then determined for a medium characterized by a Kolrnogorov spectrum. If the beam is assumed to be collimated, this expression reduces to that of Collett and Alferness; if the plane-wave limiting case of the Gaussian beam is taken, the results in this paper agree with those of Strohbehn. The results show that ofs the beam axis the depolarization can be greater than for the plane wave, and that near the beam focal point the depolarization may decrease by orders of magnitude.