EVALUATION OF THE EFFICIENCY OF ENERGY TRANSPORT OF THE GAUSSIAN AND ANNULAR LASER BEAMS IN THE ATMOSPHERE
D. S. Rytchkov
V. E. Zuev Institute of Atmospheric Optics, Siberian Branch, Russian academy of Sciences, Tomsk, Russia
Keywords: turbulent atmosphere, intensity distribution, effective beam radius, averaged Poynting vector, energy flux density
Abstract
The initial intensity shape effect on the spatial evolution of the averaged Poynting vector and the intensity distribution of laser beams propagating in a turbulent atmosphere has been studied. The cases of focused Gaussian and annular laser beams are considered. Introducing the term of the power-cutoff-radius, i.e., the radius of the circle spot possessing a fraction of the full power, the beam quality is evaluated and discussed. It is shown that, by varying the shape of the annular intensity profile at the source plane, the energy flux density through the spot with less than one half of the full power can be increased as compared to the Gaussian beam of the same power-cutoff-radius.
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