Abstract

The slip-step method is widely used in simulating optical wave propagation in turbulent atmosphere, which treats propagation and phase perturbations caused by turbulence separately and in discrete steps along the propagation axis. The phase perturbations are represented by a series of phase screens, and hence, the precision of the phase screen concerns the accuracy of the simulation. In this paper, we first discuss the precision and computational performance of phase screens generated by the subharmonic complemented discrete Fourier transformation (DFT) (DFT-SH) method, three kinds of randomized spectral sampling techniques (sparse spectrum (SS) technique, sparse spectrum technique with uniform wave vectors (SU), randomized DFT technique), and optimization-based (OB) method; then, the simulations are implemented with the phase screens generated by these methods. Some statistical quantities of the received optical field are calculated, such as beam wander variance, long-term beam radius, short-term beam radius, and on-axis scintillation index. The statistical results show that the undersampling of phase screen in the low-frequency region causes underestimation of the values of beam wander variance, long-term beam radius, and focused beam on-axis scintillation index because these quantities are sensitive to the large-scale inhomogeneities. However, the undersampling does not affect the predicted values of the short-term beam radius and collimated beam on-axis scintillation index because these quantities are insensitive to the large-scale inhomogeneities.

© 2020 Optical Society of America

Comparison of four techniques for turbulent phase screens simulation

Mikhail Charnotskii
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 37(5) 738-747 (2020)

Temporal analysis of laser beam propagation in the atmosphere using computer-generated long phase screens

Federico Dios, Jaume Recolons, Alejandro Rodríguez, and Oscar Batet
Opt. Express 16(3) 2206-2220 (2008)

Propagation analysis of Ince–Gaussian beams in turbulent atmosphere

Halil T. Eyyuboğlu
Appl. Opt. 53(11) 2290-2296 (2014)

Mathematic model analysis of Gaussian beam propagation through an arbitrary thickness random phase screen

Yuzhen Tian, Jin Guo, Rui Wang, and Tingfeng Wang
Opt. Express 19(19) 18216-18228 (2011)

Scintillation analysis of truncated Bessel beams via numerical turbulence propagation simulation

Halil T. Eyyuboğlu, David Voelz, and Xifeng Xiao
Appl. Opt. 52(33) 8032-8039 (2013)