Atmospheric turbulence effects on a partially coherent Gaussian beam: implications for free-space laser communication

A partially coherent quasi-monochromatic Gaussian laser beam propagating in atmospheric turbulence is examined by using a derived analytic expression for the cross-spectral density function. Expressions for average intensity, beam size, phase front radius of curvature, and wave-front coherence length are obtained from the cross-spectral density function. These results provide a model for a free-space laser transmitter with a phase diffuser used to reduce pointing errors. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.