Extinction of high-power laser radiation under adverse weather conditions

The propagation of laser radiation over long distances can be significantly affected by atmospheric extinction due to precipitation as well as aerosol particles and molecules. The knowledge of the contribution of precipitation is critical to the operation of a variety of laser-based systems. The study of high-power laser transmission around 1 µm is of particular interest because several atmospheric transmission windows are located in this region. To investigate the effect of adverse weather conditions on laser transmission, free-space laser transmission experiments are conducted on the DLR test range in Lampoldshausen, Germany. A high-power laser with a wavelength of 1.03 µm is used for the transmission measurements in combination with calibrated power monitors. Local weather conditions are continuously monitored by meteorological instruments during the experiments. Extinction coefficients are derived from transmission measurements showing that the extinction for snow is 7 times higher than for rain, and the extinction for drizzle/rain is 4 times higher than for rain at a given precipitation rate of 1 mm/h. For a mixture of rain and snow, the extinction is comparable to that of rain, indicating that the water content strongly influences the optical properties and thus the extinction of laser radiation in mixed precipitation. A good relationship is found between the measured extinction coefficient and visibility for drizzle and rain and a slightly larger scatter of the data for snow. Furthermore, measured extinction coefficients are compared to the extinction coefficients based on the experimental size distributions of precipitation particles and geometric optics. A reasonable agreement is obtained for rain, with no improvement taking the forward-scattering into the detector aperture into account, and a much better agreement is obtained for snow when the forward-scattering contribution is included.