Laser space debris cleaning:Elimination of detrimental self-focusing effects

Abstract

A ground-based laser system for space debris cleaning requires pulse power well above the critical power for self-focusing in the atmosphere. Self-focusing results in beam quality degradation and is detrimental for the system operation. We demonstrate that, for the relevant laser parameters, when the thickness of the atmosphere is much less than the focusing length (that is, of the orbit scale), the beam transit through the atmosphere produces the phase distortion only. The model thus developed is in very good agreement with numerical modeling. This implies that, by using phase mask or adaptive optics, it may be possible to eliminate almost completely the impact of self-focusing effects in the atmosphere on the laser beam propagation.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.58.1.011003
Divisions: College of Engineering & Physical Sciences > Systems analytics research institute (SARI)
College of Engineering & Physical Sciences > Aston Institute of Photonics Technology (AIPT)
Additional Information: Copyright 2018 SPIE. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibited.
Uncontrolled Keywords: laser ablation,laser orbital debris cleaning,laser self-focusing,Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics,Engineering(all)
Publication ISSN: 1560-2303
Last Modified: 11 Mar 2024 08:24
Date Deposited: 15 Oct 2018 10:24
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
https://www.spi ... 1003.full?SSO=1 (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2018-09-22
Accepted Date: 2018-08-09
Authors: Rubenchik, Alexander M.
Vaseva, Irina A.
Fedoruk, Mikhail P.
Turitsyn, Sergei K. (ORCID Profile 0000-0003-0101-3834)

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