Mohammad MORADI

Department of Physics, Shahrekord University, P.O. Box 115, Shahrekord, Iran

(Received January 28, 2007; Accepted December 19, 2007)

The goal of this study was to analyse anisoplanatism of adaptive optics under an inhomogeneous turbulent atmosphere over a pupil of finite size. By means of a numerical model with layers of turbulence software was proposed by which point spread function (PSF), optical transfer function (OTF) as well as system isoplanatic angle can be calculated. Atmospheric turbulence was simulated with the aid of a set of moving random phase screens with arbitrary statistics. Both reference and target are assumed to be the point light sources. To simulate atmospheric turbulence we applied the concept of a number of moving random phase screens with Kolmogorov spectrum. In my investigation I used the model of the Shack–Hartmann wave front sensor and the ideal model of a wave front adaptive mirror that is assumed to reproduce a given number of Zernike polynomials without time delays. The designed software allows calculation of instantaneous and average values of phase correction errors at different angles between a reference beacon and target source. Simulations can be made with a broad range of parameters of an adaptive system and atmospheric turbulence. The system of the model allows changing of the control algorithm of phase correction. Both common phase conjugation and weighted phase conjugation algorithm have been tested. This program is capable of calculating the effects of beam diffraction during propagation in the atmosphere.

Key words: adaptive optics, anisoplanatism, turbulent atmosphere, Shack–Hartmann, phase screens