Hafizi B, Peñano J R, Palastro J P, Fischer R P, DiComo G
Opt Lett. 2017 Jan 15;42(2):298-301. doi: 10.1364/OL.42.000298.
A high-power laser beam propagating through a dielectric in the presence of fluctuations is subject to diffraction, dissipation, and optical Kerr nonlinearity. A method of moments was applied to a stochastic, nonlinear enveloped wave equation to analyze the evolution of the long-term spot radius. For propagation in atmospheric turbulence described by a Kolmogorov-von Kármán spectral density, the analysis was benchmarked against field experiments in the low-power limit and compared with simulation results in the high-power regime. Dissipation reduced the effect of self-focusing and led to chromatic aberration.
