Angle of Arrival of a Focused Gaussian Beam in Atmospheric Turbulence

Abstract

The angles of arrival (AOA) of plane waves, spherical waves, and focused beams perturbed by atmospheric turbulence in the geometrical optics limit have been calculated by others [1]. Since geometrical optics theory allows beams to be focused to an infinitesimal point, the AOA of a focused beam in this limit becomes infinite because of a D-1/3 dependence of this parameter, where D is the beam diameter. If we apply Gaussian optics theory to this problem, the AOA is no longer infinite at the focal point because the beam size at focus is not infinitesimally small. In this paper we use Gaussian optics theory to show that the AOA varies according to the diameter and focal length of the focusing element and the wavelength of the radiation being focused, as well as the range. Calculated results are given.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 2006
Accession Number
ADA481560

Entities

People

  • R. W. Mcmillan

Organizations

  • United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Angle Of Arrival
  • Atmospheric Motion
  • Beam Steering
  • Equations
  • Geometry
  • Laser Beams
  • Laser Weapons
  • Lasers
  • Long Wavelengths
  • Optical Lattices
  • Plane Waves
  • Radiation
  • Short Wavelengths
  • Spherical Waves
  • Turbulence
  • Waves

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Image Processing and Computer Vision.
  • Mathematical Modeling and Probability Theory.
  • Pulsed Power and Plasma Physics.