Abstract

An aberrated wavefront incident upon an optical resonator will excite higher order spatial modes in the cavity, and the spectral width and distribution of these modes are indicative of the type and magnitude of the aberration. We apply this concept to atmospheric turbulence modeled by the Kolmogorov distribution. The spectral widths of the cavity transmission spectra are demonstrated via simulations to correspond to the structure constant that characterizes the variation in the optical index of refraction and thus the turbulence strength. Such a relationship can be harnessed to build a sensor for simply and quickly assessing optical turbulence strength.

© 2021 Optical Society of America

Decomposition of aberrated or turbulent wavefronts into a spatial mode spectrum using optical cavities

Merlin L. Mah and Joseph J. Talghader
Appl. Opt. 58(16) 4288-4299 (2019)

Oceanic non-Kolmogorov optical turbulence and spherical wave propagation

Jin-Ren Yao, Han-Tao Wang, Hua-Jun Zhang, Jian-Dong Cai, Ming-Yuan Ren, Yu Zhang, and Olga Korotkova
Opt. Express 29(2) 1340-1359 (2021)

Effect of strong atmospheric non-Kolmogorov turbulence on the M-ary PSK subcarrier intensity modulated free space optical communications system performance

Yalçın Ata, Yahya Baykal, and Muhsin C. Gökçe
Appl. Opt. 58(13) 3639-3645 (2019)

Calculating structure function constant from measured C_n ² in non-Kolmogorov and anisotropic turbulence including inner scale effects

Melissa Beason, Larry Andrews, and Italo Toselli
Appl. Opt. 58(25) 6813-6819 (2019)

Turbulence scale effects and resolution requirements in aero-optics

Edwin Mathews, Kan Wang, Meng Wang, and Eric J. Jumper
Appl. Opt. 60(15) 4426-4433 (2021)