Double-pass propagation of laser pulses reflected by a diffuse whiteboard or a corner-cube retroreflector in turbulent atmosphere

• We present an atmospheric turbulence monitoring method based on double-pass propagation of laser pulses.
• The feasibility of this method is proved in theory.
• Peak power instabilities of echo laser pulses retroreflected by a CCR and diffuse reflected by a whiteboard are obtained by experiments.
• The double-passage system based on the CCR is more suitable for the atmospheric monitoring.

Atmospheric turbulence affects the transmission of laser pulses through the atmosphere. The effects mean that the peak power of the laser pulses is not stable. For laser pulses reflected by a cooperative target, the peak power instability is greater because of the double-pass propagation of the laser pulses through the same atmosphere. The atmospheric turbulence can be monitored by detecting the peak power instability of echo laser pulses. This paper presents a method for monitoring atmospheric turbulence based on a cooperative target. Comparative experiments are carried out based on using a diffuse whiteboard and a corner-cube retroreflector (CCR) as the cooperative target. The distance between the two terminals of the experimental system is 1550 m. The size of the diffuse whiteboard is 60×60 cm2. The bottom surface of the CCR is a circle with a diameter of 1 in. and the three mirrors of the CCR are coated with silver. Experiment results show that the peak power instability of echo laser pulses retroreflected by the CCR is 28.3%. This is much larger than that diffuse reflected by the whiteboard (11.2%). This indicates that the method based on the CCR has higher atmospheric sensitivity. In addition, the peak power of the echo laser pulses retroreflected by the CCR is also much larger. Therefore, the system based on the CCR is more suitable for monitoring of atmospheric turbulence.