Analysis of the fluctuations of a laser beam due to thermal turbulence

• Authors: Sphumelele Ndlovu , Naven Chetty
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

A laser beam propagating in air and passing through a point diffraction interferometer (PDI) produces stable interferograms that can be used to extract wavefront data such as major atmospheric characteristics: turbulence strength, inner scale and outer scale of the refractive index. These parameters need to be taken into consideration when developing defense laser weapons since they can be affected by thermal fluctuations that are due to the changes in temperature in close proximity to the propagating beam and results in phase shifts that can be used to calculate the temperature which causes wavefront perturbations on a propagating beam.

Keywords

EN

PDI; turbulence; atmospheric; interferograms

• Publisher: De Gruyter Open
• Journal: Open Physics
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 7
• Pages: 466-472

Dates

published

1 - 7 - 2014

online

21 - 6 - 2014

Contributors

author

Sphumelele Ndlovu

• School of Chemistry and Physics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, Scottsville, 3209, RSA

author

Naven Chetty

• School of Chemistry and Physics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, Scottsville, 3209, RSA

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/s11534-014-0479-2