Model-based wavefront measurement and compensation in atmospheric turbulence

Area of Science:

• Optical Engineering
• Free-Space Optical Communication

Background:

• Traditional model-based phase aberration measurement methods lack accuracy due to unaddressed non-uniform beam intensity.
• Existing methods have not been experimentally verified for atmospheric turbulence compensation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enhance phase recovery accuracy in free-space optical communication by introducing an aberrated pupil function.
• To experimentally validate the proposed method's effectiveness in mitigating atmospheric turbulence effects.

Main Methods:

• Developed the aberrated pupil method by integrating an aberrated pupil function into the traditional model-based approach.
• Conducted experimental investigations in free-space optical communication to assess phase measurement and compensation capabilities.

Main Results:

• The aberrated pupil method reduced turbulence-induced coupling power loss from 2.59 dB to 0.87 dB (a 1.72 dB reduction).
• Coherent communication experiments demonstrated a significant improvement in the communication power budget by approximately 13.5 dB.

Conclusions:

• The proposed aberrated pupil method effectively measures and compensates for phase aberration.
• This advancement significantly enhances the communication quality and power budget in free-space optical communication systems.