Abstract

We study a particular kind of laser beam through atmo- spheric turbulence. That beam is called phase-flipped Gaussian beam since it has a π difference phase in the intensity amplitudes between the two halves of the beam profile. The scintillation index of that spatial mode under weak irradiance fluctuations is discussed and compared with the intensity fluctuations of a Gaus- sian beam. A good agreement is found between theoret- ical and experimental results exhibiting a reduction of intensity fluctuations induced by random media along theturbulentpath.