TY - JOUR
T1 - Laser space debris cleaning
T2 - Elimination of detrimental self-focusing effects
AU - Rubenchik, Alexander M.
AU - Vaseva, Irina A.
AU - Fedoruk, Mikhail P.
AU - Turitsyn, Sergei K.
N1 - 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.
PY - 2018/9/22
Y1 - 2018/9/22
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - laser ablation
KW - laser orbital debris cleaning
KW - laser self-focusing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85054089072&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/journals/optical-engineering/volume-58/issue-01/011003/Laser-space-debris-cleaning--elimination-of-detrimental-self-focusing/10.1117/1.OE.58.1.011003.full?SSO=1
U2 - 10.1117/1.OE.58.1.011003
DO - 10.1117/1.OE.58.1.011003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85054089072
SN - 0091-3286
VL - 58
JO - Optical Engineering
JF - Optical Engineering
IS - 1
M1 - 011003
ER -