Statistical characterization of laser propagation through laboratory generated atmospheric turbulence

A turbulence chamber was designed and built to generate locally homogeneous, isotropic turbulence within a well defined region. A computer controlled micro-thermocouple system was constructed to measure the structure function of temperature fluctuations within the chamber. From these results Kolmogorov's 2/3 law was established within a certain region. For the optical case, irradiance fluctuations of a collimated laser beam propagating through turbulence were measured. Statistics of the fluctuations were analyzed by measuring coefficients of variation gamma sub 0, skewness gamma, excess gamma sub 2, and histograms.