Average intensity and spreading of cosh-Gaussian laser beams in the turbulent atmosphere

The average intensity and spreading of cosh-Gaussian laser beams in the turbulent atmosphere are examined. Our research is based principally on formulating the average-intensity profile at the receiver plane for cosh-Gaussian excitation. The limiting cases of our formulation for the average intensity are found to reduce correctly to the existing Gaussian beam wave result in turbulence and the cosh-Gaussian beam result in free space (in the absence of turbulence). The average intensity and the broadening of the cosh-Gaussian beam wave after it propagates in the turbulent atmosphere are numerically evaluated versus source size, beam displacement, link length, structure constant, and two wavelengths of 0.85 and 1.55 mum, which are most widely used in currently employed free-space-optical links. Results indicate that in turbulence the beam is widened beyond its free-space diffraction values. At the receiver plane, analogous to the case of free space, this diffraction eventually leads to transformation of the cosh-Gaussian beam into an oscillatory average-intensity profile with a Gaussian envelope. (C) 2005 Optical Society of America.