Measurement of wavefront aberration in laser beam propagating over water

Atmospheric turbulence is a main limiting factor to the application of wireless laser communication in marine environment, which causes intensity variation and wavefront aberration in the laser beam. Characterizing the wavefront aberration of the laser beam is an important step for mitigating the effect of turbulence. In this paper, we focus on measurement and analysis of wavefront aberration in laser beam propagating over a lake with a transmitter-receiver distance of about 70 meters. Information of wavefront of the laser beam is obtained with a Shack-Hartman wavefront sensor. Both the spatial and temporal characteristics of the wavefront aberration in the laser beam have been investigated and characterized.