Abstract
The first blue-green laser propagation measurements through clouds that simulate the geometry of a satellite-to-ground communication link were made. The time history of large diameter (∼6-km) pulses illuminating cloud tops was recorded as a function of receiver field of view (FOV). The maximum pulse stretching observed for nanosecond laser pulses was 20 μsec for clouds of 1.5-km thickness. It was shown that the pulses could in general be represented by a linear combination of two modified γ functions: One, a slowly decaying term, represents the power from the diffusion type of multiple scattering. The other, a much faster decaying term, represents the power from a direct nonscattered portion of the beam or from a lower order of multiple scattering. For very dense clouds, the only component measured was the diffusion type. Data of FOV scans are presented for various values of optical thickness.
© 1982 Optical Society of America
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