Turbulence effects on laser propagation in a marine environment - art. no. 670804

Our objective is to determine the fraction of a propagated laser beam that will arrive at a receiver after traversing a 7.1 kilometer near-ocean-surface path. A multi-year experiment has been conducted in 2005 and 2006 to study near-surface propagation over water at Zuniga Shoal in San Diego. To quantify the effects of turbulence, we used a saturation-resistant scintillometer to measure the refractivity structure parameter C-n(2). A meteorological buoy located near the mid-path point collected meteorological data which was used as input data for an optical turbulence model NSLOT. In addition for some of the test period there was also laser propagation data collected from a 1.064 mu m laser on the same path. We compare model predictions with the incoherent scintillometer data and the coherent laser propagation data.