Scintillations of optical plane and spherical waves in underwater turbulence

The scintillation indices of optical plane and spherical waves propagating in underwater turbulent media are evaluated by using the Rytov method, and the variations in the scintillation indices are investigated when the rate of dissipation of mean squared temperature, the temperature and salinity fluctuations, the propagation distance, the wavelength, the Kolmogorov microscale length, and the rate of dissipation of the turbulent kinetic energy are varied. Results show that as in the atmosphere, also in underwater media the plane wave is more affected by turbulence as compared to the spherical wave. The underwater turbulence effect becomes significant at 5-10 m for a plane wave and at 20-25 m for a spherical wave. The turbulence effect is relatively small in deep water and is large at the surface of the water. Salinity-induced turbulence strongly dominates the scintillations compared to temperature-induced turbulence. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America