Generation of partially coherent full Poincaré beam arrays and their Stokes scintillations in turbulent media

A type of vector beam arrays, called partially coherent full Poincaré (PCFP) beam arrays, is introduced and experimentally synthesized using modal-vector-decomposition method. Our experimental system involves a digital micro-mirror device, which can generate such beam arrays with controllable spatial coherence and array structure in almost real-time, enabling to test the impact of atmospheric turbulence on them. Furthermore, we experimentally examine the scintillations of four Stokes parameters (denoted as S0, S1, S2, and S3) of PCFP beam arrays propagating through lab-simulated turbulence. The results indicate that the Stokes scintillations decrease as the number of beamlets increase or spatial coherence decreases. In contrast to S0 scintillation (intensity scintillation), S1, S2, or S3 scintillation is less affected by the turbulence under the same conditions. Our experimental results show that S2 and S3 scintillations could reduce by 67.2% and 52.4% compared to the intensity scintillation in strong turbulence. Our findings have potential applications in free-space optical communication when the Stokes parameter S2 or S3 is served as an information carrier.