Exploring Optical Turbulence with Italo Toselli

Explore optical turbulence at an intermediate level with an expert who has 20+ years of experience in the field!

This video offers a preview of the SPIE course "Optical Turbulence and Laser Beam Propagation" taught by Italo Toselli. He will teach you how optical turbulence impacts laser beam propagation through the atmosphere and ocean, and introduce practical methods for modeling and managing these effects in real-world optical systems.

You’ll learn the foundations of optical turbulence theory, including Kolmogorov statistics and the Rytov method, and how these models describe the behavior of laser beam propagation through random refractive index fluctuations.

Toselli explains how turbulence degrades beam quality and imaging performance, highlighting key effects like scintillation, beam spread, beam wander, and angle of arrival fluctuations.

The course also examines how optical turbulence influences the design of systems such as free-space optical communication, underwater laser links, and laser radar. You’ll explore concepts such as the Fried parameter, Strehl ratio, and phase variance to assess system performance and understand how adaptive optics can be used to counteract turbulence.

These ideas are tied together through examples that show how laser beam propagation is affected by and can be optimized for optical turbulence conditions.

Learn more about this course here: https://spie.org/SC1327-Toselli