Arbitrary beam propagation in an underwater turbulent medium.

Abstract

The average intensity for an arbitrary optical beam is obtained and presented by introducing propagation in underwater turbulence for arbitrary shaped optical beams that can be expressed by the known and newly generated source profiles. The received intensity of the arbitrary optical beam is found, and the effect of underwater turbulence on the received intensity is analyzed. The arbitrary source field profile is generated by dividing the source plane into pixels and by assigning the required amplitude and phase to each pixel. The average received intensity distributions are presented in the presence of underwater turbulence for different types of beams, such as the known Gaussian beam, arbitrary beams of chess board shape, and a beam consisting of the initial letters of our Çankaya Üniversitesi, Ç.Ü. Our results can be used in applications such as underwater optical imaging systems, reflection from rough surfaces underwater, underwater wireless optical communication links, and underwater optical cryptography.