Bit error rate of focused Gaussian beams in weak oceanic turbulence

Formulation of the on-axis scintillation index of a focused Gaussian beam in weak oceanic turbulence is derived by using the Rytov method, and using this formulation, the average bit error rate (BER) is evaluated. The scintillation indices of collimated, focused Gaussian, plane, and spherical beams are compared. The scintillation index and BER versus the average signal-to-noise ratio is found by using the log-normal distributed intensity for the collimated and focused Gaussian beams, which are exhibited for various source sizes alpha(s), focal lengths F-s, rates of dissipation of the mean squared temperature chi(T), and rates of dissipation of the turbulent kinetic energy per unit mass of fluid epsilon. Focused beams are found to have important advantages over collimated beams. For the focused beam, as the source size increases, the scintillation index and BER decrease. When the focal length is equal to the propagation length, the BER is found to possess the smallest value. The BER is proportional to chi(T), but inversely proportional to epsilon. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America