Correlation and structure functions of Hermite-sinusoidal-Gaussian laser beams in a turbulent atmosphere

To study the performance of atmospheric optical links by using Hermite-sinusoidal-Gaussian laser beam sources, we derive the log-amplitude and the phase correlation and structure functions of such beams in a turbulent atmosphere. Our formulations correctly reduce to the known higher-order mode correlation and structure functions, which in turn reduce to the fundamental-mode (TEM00-mode) results. Several special cases of our formulation are presented, among which the case involving Hermite-cosh-Gaussian dependence is especially noted, since this case is of interest to us owing to the nature of cosh dependence exhibiting the concentration of the energy in the outer lobes of the beam. (C) 2004 Optical Society of America.