The propagation dynamics and stability of an intense laser beam in a radial power-law plasma channel

By containing ponderomotive self-channeling,the propagation behavior of an intense laser beam and the physical conditions are obtained theoretically in a radial power-law plasma channel.It is found that ponderomotive self-channeling results in the emergence of a solitary wave and catastrophic focusing,which apparently decreases the region for stable propagation in a parameter space of laser power and the ratio of the initial laser spot radius to the channel radius(RLC).Direct numerical simulation confirms the theory of constant propagation,periodic defocusing and focusing oscillations in the parameter space,and reveals a radial instability which prevents the formation of bright and dark solitary waves.The corresponding unstable critical curve is added in the parameter space numerically and the induced unstable region above the unstable critical curve covers that of catastrophic focusing,which shrinks the stable region for laser beams.For the expected constant propagation,the results reveal the need for a low RLC.Further study illustrates that the channel power-law exponent has an obvious effect on the final stable region and laser propagation,for example increasing this exponent can enlarge the stable region significantly,which is beneficial for guiding of the laser and increases the lowest RLC for constant propagation.Our results also show that the initial laser amplitude has an apparent influence on the propagation behavior.

Double-distance propagation of Gaussian beams passing through a tilted cat-eye optical lens in a turbulent atmosphere

By using the extended Huygens-Fresnel diffraction integral and the method of expanding the aperture function into a finite sum of complex Caussian functions, an approximate analytical formula of the double-distance propagation for Caussian beam passing through a tilted cat-eye optical lens and going back along the entrance way in a turbulent atmosphere has been derived. Through numerical calculation, the effects of incidence angle, propagation distance, and structure constant on the propagation properties of a Gaussian beam in a turbulent atmosphere are studied. It is found that the incidence angle creates an unsymmetrical average intensity distribution pattern, while the propagation distance and the structure constant can each create a smooth and symmetrical average intensity distribution pattern. The average intensity peak gradually deviates from the centre, and the central average intensity value decreases quickly with the increase in incidence angle, while a larger structure constant can bring the average intensity peak back to the centre.

Propagation of Gauss-Bessel beams in turbulent atmosphere

This paper studies the propagation properties of Gauss-Bessel beams in a turbulent atmosphere. Based on the extended Huygens-Fresnel principle, it derives the intensity distribution expression for such beams propagating in a turbulent atmosphere. Then the influence of turbulence and source beam parameters on the beam propagation is studied in great detail. It finds that the intensity distribution of Gauss-Bessel beams will change into Gaussian profile in a turbulent atmosphere, and that stronger turbulence and smaller topological charges will lead to a faster changing.

Propagation of cylindrical vector beams in a turbulent atmosphere

Based on the extended Huygens-Fresnel principle, the propagation of cylindrical vector beams in a turbulent atmosphere is investigated. The intensity distribution and the polarization degree of beams on propagation are studied. It is found that the beam profile has a Gaussian shape under the influence of the atmospheric turbulence, and the polarization distribution shows a dip in the cross section as the beam propagates in the turbulent atmosphere. It is also found that the beam profile and the polarization distribution are closely related to beam parameter and atmospheric turbulence.

Propagation of high-power partially coherent fibre laser beams in a real environment

The propagation performance of high-power partially coherent fibre laser beams in a real environment is inves- tigated and the theoretical model of a high-power fibre laser propagating in a real environment is established. The influence of a collimating system and thermal blooming is considered together with atmospheric turbulence and me- chanical jitter. The laser energy concentration of partially coherent beams in the far field is calculated and analysed based on the theoretical model. It is shown that the propagation performance of partially coherent beams depends on the collimating system, atmospheric turbulence, mechanical jitter and thermal blooming. The propagation performance of partially coherent beams and fully coherent beams is studied and the results show that partially coherent beams are less sensitive to the influence of thermal blooming, which results in that the energy degeneration for partially coherent beams is only 50% of that for fully coherent beams. Both partially coherent beams and fully coherent beams become less sensitive to thermal blooming when the average structural constant of the refraction index fluctuations increases to 1.7×10^-14 m^-2/3. The investigation presents a reference for applications of a high-power fibre laser system.

An exact solution to paraxial propagation of laser beams in longitudinal inhomogeneous plasmas

An exact, general solution for laser beams propagating in longitudinally inhomogeneous plasmas is obtained in the form of the diffraction integral. The Gaussian beam and the Hermite-Gaussian beam are taken for example. In the case of an increasing plasma density along the propagation distance, natural diffraction of the Gaussian beam is retarded. This retardance has a less effect on the central part of the Hermite-Gaussian beam while a considerable rise of the power in bucket （PIB） occurs in the surrounding part of the beam.

Numerical simulation of super-continuum laser propagation in turbulent atmosphere

Considering the atmospheric extinction and turbulence effects,we investigate the propagation performances of supercontinuum laser sources in atmospheric turbulence statistically by using the numerical simulation method,and the differences in propagation properties between the super-continuum(SC)laser and its pump laser are also analyzed.It is found that the propagation characteristics of super-continuum laser are almost similar to those of the pump laser.The degradation of source coherence degree may cause the relative beam spreading and scintillation indexes to decrease at different propagation distances or different turbulence strengths.The root-mean-square value of beam wandering is insensitive to the variation of source correlation length,and less aperture averaging occurs when the laser source becomes less coherent.Additionally,from the point of view of beam wandering,the SC laser has no advantage over the pump laser.Although the pump laser can bring about a bigger aperture average,the SC laser has a lower scintillation which may be due to the multiple wavelength homogenization effects on intensity fluctuations.This would be the most important virtue of the SC laser that can be utilized to improve the performance of laser engineering.

Propagation of the off-axis superposition of partially coherent beams through atmospheric turbulence

The propagation properties of the off-axis superposition of partially coherent beams through atmospheric turbulence and their beam quality in terms of the mean-squared beam width w（z） and the power in the bucket （PIB） are studied in detail, where the effects of partial coherence, off-axis beam superposition and atmospheric turbulence are considered. The analytical expressions for the intensity, the beam width and the PIB are derived, and illustrative examples are given numerically. It is shown that the maximum intensity/max and the PIB decrease and w（z） increases as the refraction index structure constant Cn^2 increases. Therefore, the turbulence results in a degradation of the beam quality. However, the resulting partially coherent beam with a smaller value of spatial correlation parameter γ and larger values of separate distance Xd and beam number M is less affected by the turbulence than that with a larger value of y and smaller values of Xd and M. The main results obtained in this paper are explained physically.

Scintillation of partially coherent Gaussian–Schell model beam propagation in slant atmospheric turbulence considering inner- and outer-scale effects

Based on the modified Rytov theory and the international telecommunication union-radio （ITU-R） slant atmospheric structure constant model, the uniform scintillation index of partially coherent Gaussian-Schell model （GSM） beam propa- gation in the slant path is derived from weak- to strong-turbulence regions considering inner- and outer-scale effects. The effects of wavelength of beams and inner- and outer-scale of turbulence on scintillation are analyzed numerically. Compar- ison between the scintillation of GSM beams under the von Karman spectrum and that of beams under the modified Hill spectrum is made. The results obtained show that the scintillation index obtained under the von Karman spectrum is smaller than that under the modified Hill spectrum. This study can find theory bases for the experiments of the partially coherent GSM beam propagation through atmospheric turbulence.

Impact of atmospheric turbulence on coherent beam combining for laser weapon systems

The performance of a laser weapon system based on coherent beam combining(CBC)depends on its propagation properties in the atmosphere.In this study,an analytical model based on partial coherent beam combining(PCBC)for assumed coherence coefficients between beams in a CBC lattice was developed.The Kolmogorov model of atmospheric turbulence and the Hufnagel-Valley model of C^(2)_(n) dependence on atmospheric parameters were implemented.Novel simplified metrics were proposed to assess the CBC performance.Several beam profiles(super-Gaussian,truncated Gaussian,etc.)and geometries were analyzed in terms of maximal intensity in the far field.An approximate formula for PCBC efficiency dependent on the Fried radius was proposed.The results of CBC modeling were compared to those of the Gaussian beam propagation model in a turbulent atmosphere.The dependence of CBC performance on the C^(2)_(n) parameter,range,and elevation angle was analyzed.It could be concluded that the application of CBC for medium and long range propagation is impractical without an effective adaptive optics system.

Influence of moderate-to-strong anisotropic non-Kolmogorov turbulence on intensity fluctuations of a Gaussian–Schell model beam in marine atmosphere

The scintillation index（SI） of a Gaussian–Schell model（GSM） beam in a moderate-to-strong anisotropic nonKolmogorov turbulent atmosphere is developed based on the extended Rytov theory. The on-axis SI in a marine atmosphere is higher than that in a terrestrial atmosphere, but the off-axis SI exhibits the opposite trend. The on-axis SI first increases and then begins to decrease and saturate as the turbulence strength increases. Turbulence inner and outer scales have different effects on the on-axis SI in different turbulent fluctuation regions. The anisotropy characteristic of atmospheric turbulence leads to the decline in the on-axis SI, and the rise in the off-axis SI. The on-axis SI can be lowered by increasing the anisotropy of turbulence, wavelength, and source partial coherence before entering the saturation attenuation region. The developed model may be useful for evaluating ship-to-ship/shore free-space optical communication system performance.

Propagation properties of off-axis Hermite-cosh-Gaussian beam combinations through a first-order optical system

Based on the Collins integral formula, the analytic expressions of propagation of the coherent and the incoherent off-axis Hermite-cosh-Gaussian （HChG） beam combinations with rectangular symmetry passing through a paraxial first-order optical system are derived, and corresponding numerical examples are given and analysed. The resulting beam quality is discussed in terms of power in the bucket （PIB）. The study suggests that the resulting beam cannot keep the initial intensity shape during the propagation and the beam quality for coherent mode is not always better than that for incoherent mode. Reviewing the numerical simulations of Gaussian, Hermite-Gaussian （HG） and cosh- Gaussian （ChG） beam combinations indicates that the Hermite polynomial exerts a chief influence on the irradiance profile of composite beam and far field power concentration.

Nonlinear images of scatterers in chirped pulsed laser beams

The bandwidth and the duration of incident pulsed beam are proved to play important roles in modifying the nonlinear image of amplitude-type scatterer. It is found that the initially positive chirp-type bandwidth can suppress the nonlinear image, while the negative one can enhance it, and that both effects are inversely proportional to the incident pulse duration. Numerical simulations further demonstrate that the location of nonlinear image is at the conjugate plane of the scatterer and that, for negatively pre-chirped pulsed beam, the nonlinear image peak intensity can be higher than that in the corresponding monochromatic case under certain conditions. Moreover the effect of group velocity dispersion on nonlinear image is found to be similar to that of chirp-type bandwidth.

Properties of off-axis hollow Gaussian–Schell model vortex beam propagating in turbulent atmosphere

The analytical expression of off-axis hollow Gaussian–Schell model vortex beam(HGSMVB)generated by anisotropic Gaussian–Schell model source is first introduced.The evolution properties of off-axis HGSMVB propagating in turbulent atmosphere are analyzed.The results show that the off-axis HGSMVB with smaller coherence length or propagating in stronger turbulent atmosphere will evolve from dark hollow beam into Gaussian-like beam with a larger beam spot faster.The beams with different values of integer order N or the position for hollow and vortex factor R will have almost the same Gaussian-like spot distribution at the longer propagation distance.

Numerical Modeling of the Measure of Global Environmental Needs with Applications Laser-LIDAR

The functions of Bessel are used extensively in the various problems of the science and the technology. A laser offers practical remote sensing technologies for measuring environmental changes on both global and local scales. We describe a computer model that was developed to simulate the performance of three-dimensional (3D) laser radars (lidars). The principle of the problem consists in interpreting information on the absorption of the laser impulse in a spectral line assigned to the chemical body that one studied. Our purpose is to estimate the vertical variation of extinction and atmospheric transmission due to aerosol particles near the air-geographical surface interface. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by computer simulation.

Characteristics of a partially coherent Gaussian Schell-model beam propagating in slanted atmospheric turbulence

On the basis of the extended Huygens-Fresnel principle and the model of the refractive-index structure constant in the atmospheric turbulence proposed by the International Telecommunication Union-Radio Communication Sector,the characteristics of the partially coherent Gaussian Schell-model（GSM） beams propagating in slanted atmospheric turbulence are studied.Using the cross-spectral density function（CSDF）,we derive the expressions for the effective beam radius,the spreading angle,and the average intensity.The variance of the angle-of-arrival fluctuation and the wander effect of the GSM beam in the turbulence are calculated numerically.The influences of the coherence degree,the propagation distance,the propagation height,and the waist radius on the propagation characteristics of the partially coherent beams are discussed and compared with those of the fully coherent Gaussian beams.

Vectorial Structure of Non-Paraxial Linearly Polarized Gaussian Beam in Far Field

According to the vectorial structure of non-paraxial electromagnetic beams and the method of stationary phase, the analytical TE and TM terms of non-paraxial linearly polarized Caussian beam are presented in the far field. The influence of linearly polarized angle on the relative energy flux distributions of the whole beam and its TE and TM terms is studied. The beam spot of the TE term is perpendicular to the direction of linearly polarized angle, while that of the TM term coincides with the direction of linearly polarized angle. The whole beam spot is elliptical, and the long axis is located at the direction of linearly polarized angle. The relative energy flux distribution of the TE term is relatively centralized in the direction perpendicular to the linearly polarized angle. While that of the TM term is relatively centralized in the direction of linearly polarized angle. To obtain the isolated TM and TE terms, a polarizer should be put at the long and the short axis of the whole beam spot, respectively.

弱相对论涡旋光在等离子体中传播的波前畸变及补偿

涡旋光与等离子体相互作用近年来在激光等离子体领域引起了广泛的关注.深入研究涡旋光在等离子体中的传播对粒子加速和辐射源产生等工作具有重要意义.本文着重探讨了弱相对论涡旋光在等离子中传播时,传播过程对电磁波结构的影响.基于三维粒子模拟,发现弱相对论涡旋光在等离子体中传播时会产生波前畸变.在给定等离子体密度时,畸变程度与电磁波强度及传播距离密切相关.基于相位修正模型,通过考虑电子相对论质量修正,在理论上对该现象进行了解释.此外,研究还发现可以通过设置适当的初始密度调制对波前畸变进行补偿抑制,并通过三维粒子模拟进行了验证.本工作加强了对涡旋光在等离子体中传播过程的理解,并为设计应用于相对论涡旋光的等离子体器件提供了参考.

部分相干光在大气湍流中传输特性的研究进展

光波在大气中传播时,由于大气折射率的变化,导致光强闪烁、光束扩展和光斑漂移等湍流效应,严重影响激光通信、跟踪和成像系统的性能。部分相干光受湍流影响更小,因此其传输特性成为近年来的研究热点。本文总结了国内外部分相干光在大气湍流中的传输特性研究进展,同时介绍了西安理工大学在该领域的研究工作,主要包括光强分布、光束扩展、光束漂移、光强闪烁、到达角起伏和偏振以及散斑特性等,最后对该领域的发展方向进行了展望。

激光系统组件化仿真软件EasyLaser

针对国内一直以来缺乏一套能够对复杂激光系统进行全面仿真模拟工具的问题,在成熟仿真模块的基础上,基于组件化建模仿真思想研发了通用易用的激光系统仿真软件EasyLaser。它由通用的组件化建模仿真支撑平台SciSimu和8个仿真组件库构成,具备对光束的光学元件间传输、大气传输、电视成像、自适应光学校正、识别提取跟踪等复杂过程的建模与仿真能力。详细介绍了EasyLaser的物理仿真能力和软件特色,并利用EasyLaser软件搭建仿真光路模型,进行自适应光学系统对大气湍流效应的校正效果的分析和研究。