Fractal dimension of turbulent laser beam wandering

PÉREZ, D. G. , ZUNINO, L. & GARAVAGLIA, M.

Porlamar, Isla Margarita, Venezuela

Congreso; V Reunión Iberoamericana de Óptica y VIII Reunión Latinoamericana de Óptica, Láseres y sus Aplicaciones; 2004

International Commission for Optics (ICO)

We analyze the fractal (box-counting) dimension of laser beam wandering. The wandering is due to the light travelling across a path filled by laboratory generated turbulence. The laser´s centroid position is collected by a continuous position detector---``light-tracker.´´ We determine the box-counting dimension by means of two independent algorithms. The first method calculates the Hurst exponent of each axis, within the fractional Brownian model, and then the fractal dimension is determined applying a theoretical result. For the second one a new algorithm is proposed to estimate it directly. These results are compared.