The Scattering of Partially Coherent Electromagnetic Beam Illumination from Statistically Rough Surfaces

Much of the rough surface scattering theory developed to date considers only the effects of fully coherent and fully incoherent illumination in the formation of solutions— a problem studied in earnest since the late 1800’s. In response, this dissertation extends the theory currently available in modeling rough surface scattering to include the effects of partially coherent illumination. Such illumination plays a pivotal role in our understanding of active-illumination systems, similar to those found in directed-energy and remote-sensing applications, which use the light scattered from distant targets for tactical purposes. Specifically, this dissertation uses the physical optics approximation (Kirchhoff boundary conditions) to determine a 3D vector solution for the far-field scattering of electromagnetic beam illumination with partial spatial coherence from statistically rough surfaces. The analysis considers three different material substrates: dielectrics, conductors, and a perfect electrical conductor. It also makes use of a Gaussian Schell-model form for the incident-field cross-spectral density matrix. In so doing, this dissertation develops closed-form expressions for the scattered field cross-spectral density matrix with two analytical forms—one applicable to smooth-to moderately rough surfaces and the other applicable to very rough surfaces. The analysis shows that these closed-form expressions are, in general, complicated functions of both the source (size and coherence properties) and surface parameters (surface height standard deviation and correlation length). Under appropriate conditions, the analysis also compares the 3D vector solution to previously validated solutions and empirical measurements. The results show good agreement

Wave-optics Investigation of Turbulence Thermal Blooming Interaction: II. Using Time-dependent Simulations

Part II of this two-part paper uses wave-optics simulations to look at the Monte Carlo averages associated with turbulence and time-dependent thermal blooming (TDTB). The goal is to investigate turbulence thermal blooming interaction (TTBI). At wavelengths near 1 μm, TTBI increases the amount of constructive and destructive interference (i.e., scintillation) that results from high-power laser beam propagation through distributed-volume atmospheric aberrations. As a result, we use the spherical-wave Rytov number, the number of wind-clearing periods, and the distortion number to gauge the strength of the simulated turbulence and TDTB. These parameters simply greatly given propagation paths with constant atmospheric conditions. In addition, we use the log-amplitude variance and the branch-point density to quantify the effects of TTBI. These metrics result from a point-source beacon being backpropagated from the target plane to the source plane through the simulated turbulence and TDTB. Overall, the results show that the log-amplitude variance and branch-point density increase significantly due to TTBI. This outcome poses a major problem for beam-control systems that perform phase compensation

Wave-optics Investigation of Turbulence Thermal Blooming Interaction: I. Using Steady-state Simulations

Part I of this two-part paper uses wave-optics simulations to look at the Monte Carlo averages associated with turbulence and steady-state thermal blooming (SSTB). The goal is to investigate turbulence thermal blooming interaction (TTBI). At wavelengths near 1 μm, TTBI increases the amount of constructive and destructive interference (i.e., scintillation) that results from high-power laser beam propagation through distributed-volume atmospheric aberrations. As a result, we use the spherical-wave Rytov number and the distortion number to gauge the strength of the simulated turbulence and SSTB. These parameters simplify greatly given propagation paths with constant atmospheric conditions. In addition, we use the log-amplitude variance and the branch-point density to quantify the effects of TTBI. These metrics result from a point-source beacon being backpropagated from the target plane to the source plane through the simulated turbulence and SSTB. Overall, the results show that the log-amplitude variance and branch-point density increase significantly due to TTBI. This outcome poses a major problem for beam-control systems that perform phase compensation

Branch Point Mitigation of Thermal Blooming Phase Compensation Instability

Thermal blooming can have a major impact on high-energy laser (HEL) beam propagation in the atmosphere. In theory, an adaptiveoptics (AO) system can mitigate the nonlinear optical effects induced by thermal blooming; however, when a single deformable mirror is used for phase-only compensation, analysis predicts the possibility of instability. This instability is appropriately termed phase compensation instability (PCI) and arises with the time-dependent development of spatial perturbations found within the HEL beam. These spatial perturbations act as local hot spots that produce negative-lens-like optical effects in the atmosphere. An AO system corrects for the hot spots by applying positive-lens-like phase compensations. In turn, this increases the strength of the thermal blooming and leads to a runaway condition, i.e. positive feedback in the AO control loop. This study uses a series of computational wave-optics experiments to explore the conditions for insipient PCI. Horizontal propagation is modeled with the effects of extinction, thermal blooming, and turbulence for a focused Gaussian beam. In addition, a nominal AO system is used for phase compensation from a point source beacon. Results show that the development of branch points under strong thermal blooming reduces the possibility of PCI. Parameters within the AO system, such as the number of actuators on the deformable mirror and the resolution of the wavefront sensor, are varied to determine the impact of branch points in the development of PCI

Deep-turbulence Phase Compensation Using Tiled Arrays

Tiled arrays use modulo-2π phase compensation and coherent beam combination to correct for the effects of deep turbulence. As such, this paper uses wave-optics simulations to compare the closed-loop performance of tiled arrays to a branch-point-tolerant phase reconstructor known as LSPV+7 [Appl. Opt. 53, 3821 (2014) [CrossRef] ]. The wave-optics simulations make use of a point-source beacon and are setup with weak-to-strong scintillation conditions. This setup enables a trade-space exploration in support of a power-in-the-bucket comparison with LSPV+7. In turn, the results show that tiled arrays outperform LSPV+7 when transitioning from weak-to-strong scintillation conditions. These results are both encouraging and informative for those looking to tackle the branch-point problem in adaptive optics

M\u3csup\u3e2\u3c/sup\u3e Factor of a Vector Schell-Model Beam

Extending existing scalar Schell-model source work, we derive the M2 factor for a general electromagnetic or vector Schell-model source to assess beam quality. In particular, we compute the M2 factors for two vector Schell-model sources found in the literature. We then describe how to synthesize vector Schell-model beams in terms of specified, desired M2 and present Monte Carlo simulation results to validate our analysis

Rhapso : automatic stitching of mass segments from fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectra

Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR MS) provides the resolution and mass accuracy needed to analyze complex mixtures such as crude oil. When mixtures contain many different components, a competitive effect within the ICR cell takes place that hampers the detection of a potentially large fraction of the components. Recently, a new data collection technique, which consists of acquiring several spectra of small mass ranges and assembling a complete spectrum afterward, enabled the observation of a record number of peaks with greater accuracy compared to broadband methods. There is a need for statistical methods to combine and preprocess segmented acquisition data. A particular challenge of quadrupole isolation is that near the window edges there is a drop in intensity, hampering the stitching of consecutive windows. We developed an algorithm called Rhapso to stitch peak lists corresponding to multiple different m/z regions from crude oil samples. Rhapso corrects potential edge effects to enable the use of smaller windows and reduce the required overlap between windows, corrects mass shifts between windows, and generates a single peak list for the full spectrum. Relative to a stitching performed manually, Rhapso increased the data processing speed and avoided potential human errors, simplifying the subsequent chemical analysis of the sample. Relative to a broadband spectrum, the stitched output showed an over 2-fold increase in assigned peaks and reduced mass error by a factor of 2. Rhapso is expected to enable routine use of this spectral stitching method for ultracomplex samples, giving a more detailed characterization of existing samples and enabling the characterization of samples that were previously too complex to analyze

Deep-turbulence Wavefront Sensing using Digital Holography in the On-axis Phase Shifting Recording Geometry with Comparisons to the Self-referencing Interferometer

In this paper, we study the use of digital holography in the on-axis phase-shifting recording geometry for the purposes of deep-turbulence wavefront sensing. In particular, we develop closed-form expressions for the field-estimated Strehl ratio and signal-to-noise ratio for three separate phase-shifting strategies—the four-, three-, and two-step methods. These closed-form expressions compare favorably with our detailed wave-optics simulations, which propagate a point-source beacon through deep-turbulence conditions, model digital holography with noise, and calculate the Monte Carlo averages associated with increasing turbulence strengths and decreasing focal-plane array sampling. Overall, the results show the four-step method is the most efficient phase-shifting strategy and deep-turbulence conditions only degrade performance with respect to insufficient focal-plane array sampling and low signal-to-noise ratios. The results also show the strong reference beam from the local oscillator provided by digital holography greatly improves performance by tens of decibels when compared with the self-referencing interferometer