Robust autofocusing propagation in turbulence

Abstract

Turbulence in complex environments such as atmosphere and biological media has always been a great challenge to the beam propagation application in optical communication, optical trapping and manipulation. To overcome this challenge, this study comprehensively investigate the robust propagation of traditional Gaussian beam and autofocusing beam in turbulent environments. In order to select stable beams that exhibit high intensity and high field gradient at the focal position in complex environments, Kolmogorov turbulence theory is used to simulate the propagation of beams in atmospheric turbulence based on the multi-phase screen method. We systematically analyzed the intensity fluctuations, the variation of the coherence factor, and the change of the scintillation index (SI) with the propagation distance. The analysis reveals that the intensity fluctuations of autofocusing beams are significantly smaller than that of Gaussian beams, and the coherence of autofocusing beams is better than that of Gaussian beams under turbulence. Moreover, autofocusing beams exhibit less oscillation than Gaussian beams, indicating that autofocusing beams propagate in complex environments with less distortion and intensity fluctuation. Overall, this work clearly demonstrates that autofocusing beams exhibit higher stability in propagation compared with the Gaussian beams, showing great promise for applications such as optical trapping and manipulation in complex environments.