Abstract

A recent paper described experiments completed to study the effect of scattering on the propagation of modulated light in laboratory tank water [Appl. Opt. 48, 2607 (2009)]. Those measurements were limited to a specific scattering agent (Maalox antacid) with a fixed scattering albedo (0.95). The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of different scattering agents and scattering albedos on modulated light propagation in water. The results show that the scattering albedo affects the number of attenuation lengths that the modulated optical signal propagates without distortion, while the type of scattering agent affects the degree to which the modulation is distorted with increasing attenuation length.

© 2011 Optical Society of America

Propagation of modulated light in water: implications for imaging and communications systems

Linda Mullen, Alan Laux, and Brandon Cochenour
Appl. Opt. 48(14) 2607-2612 (2009)

Effect of scattering albedo on attenuation and polarization of light underwater

Brandon Cochenour, Linda Mullen, and John Muth
Opt. Lett. 35(12) 2088-2090 (2010)

Propagation of modulated optical beams carrying orbital angular momentum in turbid water

Brandon Cochenour, Kaitlyn Morgan, Keith Miller, Eric Johnson, Kaitlin Dunn, and Linda Mullen
Appl. Opt. 55(31) C34-C38 (2016)

Experimental measurements of the magnitude and phase response of high-frequency modulated light underwater

Brandon Cochenour, Kaitlin Dunn, Alan Laux, and Linda Mullen
Appl. Opt. 56(14) 4019-4024 (2017)

Backscatter suppression for underwater modulating retroreflector links using polarization discrimination

Linda Mullen, Brandon Cochenour, William Rabinovich, Rita Mahon, and John Muth
Appl. Opt. 48(2) 328-337 (2009)