Investigation of spatial and temporal characteristics of turbulent-distorted laser radiation during its dynamic phase correction in an adaptive optical system

We report the results of the analysis of experiments on dynamic phase correction of laser radiation distorted by a turbulent airflow in an adaptive optical system (AOS) with a Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor (WFS). A field-programmable gate array is used as the main AOS control element, which provides a closed loop AOS bandwidth of up to 2000 Hz. The WFS is used to estimate the characteristic bandwidth of the generated turbulence ν_turb. Changes in the spatial and temporal spectra of the laser radiation phase, as well as the quality of the beam during its dynamic phase correction at various AOS frequencies, are analysed. It is shown experimentally and by calculation that to ensure a high efficiency of the wavefront correction, the AOS frequency should be at least 20 times higher than ν_turb.