Schack-Hartmann wavefront sensing measurements of near-ground propagated laser beams

Pierre R. Barbier; Penelope Polak-Dingels; David W. Rush; Geoffrey L. Burdge; Bruce Martin Levine; Elizabeth A. Martinsen; Allan Wirth; Andrew J. Jankevics

doi:10.1117/12.283901

23 September 1997 Schack-Hartmann wavefront sensing measurements of near-ground propagated laser beams

Pierre R. Barbier, Penelope Polak-Dingels, David W. Rush, Geoffrey L. Burdge, Bruce Martin Levine, Elizabeth A. Martinsen, Allan Wirth, Andrew J. Jankevics

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 3125, Propagation and Imaging through the Atmosphere; (1997) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.283901
Event: Optical Science, Engineering and Instrumentation '97, 1997, San Diego, CA, United States

Abstract

Adaptive optics systems could be used to maintain the quality of a communication laser beam propagated near ground over a few kilometers of turbulent atmosphere. Such an adaptive optics system may incorporate a Shack- Hartmann sensor to measure the wavefront of an arriving beacon laser beam before precompensating that of the communication laser beam through a deformable mirror. We present experimental measurements of the wavefront of a laser beam propagated over distances of 0.94 and 2.4 km acquired using a 1200-subaperture Shack-Hartmann sensor. These data were acquired at 1 kllz frame rate during 2 second time intervals over the span of several days. We acquired and analyzed 41 sets of data. Our analysis shows that the atmosphere is not stationary over these 2second intervals, that the statistics of the wavefront may look very different for the same measured value of the atmosphere structure constant (C) and does not always follow the theoretical predictions based on Kolmogorov turbulence, and that the subtraction of the first 11 Zernike polynomials (first-order correction) improves the wavefront significantly unlike the subtraction of next 1 1 polynomials (third-order correction).

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Pierre R. Barbier, Penelope Polak-Dingels, David W. Rush, Geoffrey L. Burdge, Bruce Martin Levine, Elizabeth A. Martinsen, Allan Wirth, and Andrew J. Jankevics "Schack-Hartmann wavefront sensing measurements of near-ground propagated laser beams", Proc. SPIE 3125, Propagation and Imaging through the Atmosphere, (23 September 1997); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.283901

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