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Atmospheric and Oceanic Optics

2014 year, number 9

Atmospheric backscatter of a short optical pulse

V.A. Banakh, I.V. Zaloznaya
V.E. Zuev Institute of Atmospheric Optics of Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science, 1, Academician Zuev square, Tomsk, 634021, Russia
Keywords: short pulsed light beams, atmospheric backscatter, spatial coherence, non-isotropic scatter

Abstract

The function of mutual coherence of the field and the mean intensity of partially coherent pulsed optical radiation scattered by an atmospheric layer have been calculated. It is shown that as the pulse duration decreases, the spatial coherence of backscattered radiation improves in comparison with the coherence of scattered continuous-wave (cw) radiation. In contrast to cw radiation, which is scattered uniformly in the backward direction, the backscattering of pulsed radiation becomes non-isotropic for shorter pulses, and for sufficiently short pulses, the backscattered radiation is localized near the strictly backward direction in the zone with transverse dimensions comparable with the initial size of the sensing beam.