Feature
Wavefront Sensing in Deep Turbulence
Applications ranging from lidar to free-space laser communications to directed energy require ever-better ways to overcome the distortions of a churning atmosphere. Emerging wavefront-sensing technologies are stepping up to the challenge.
[Getty Images]
Anyone who has tried to pick out the shape of a distant object on the horizon has experienced the effects of optical atmospheric turbulence—fluctuations in the air’s index of refraction due to temperature gradients. Instead of a crisp, clear picture, the detected image is warped, distorted, and blurred by the varying turbulence cells between the object and the eye (or the camera).
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