2026-10-14T08:38:46Z https://api.figshare.com/v2/oai

oai:figshare.com:article/34024953 2026-09-29T16:00:33Z category_37476 portal_1023 item_type_12 month_year_09_2026

Distributed laser energy deposition enables fog-resilient optical communications Malte C. Schroeder (14417694) Victor Moreno (748751) Christophe Coreixas (10724971) Jonas Latt (10724968) Jean-Pierre Wolf (1505308) Physics (arXiv) physics.optics (arXiv) physics.ao-ph (arXiv) Fog and clouds remain major obstacles to free-space optical (FSO) communications because micron-sized droplets can impose tens of decibels of attenuation. Ultrashort laser filamentation can transiently clear fog in laboratory-scale experiments, but its extension to atmospheric-scale propagation has remained uncertain. Here we demonstrate laser-assisted fog clearing under atmospheric-scale propagation conditions over a 140-m optical path using a high-energy, high-average-power picosecond laser and weak focusing to sustain extended multifilamentation. A steady-state transparent channel approximately 2 cm in diameter restores up to 12 dB of transmission for an independent optical beam. Increasing the clearing-laser pulse energy primarily extends the multifilament region while maintaining a nearly constant longitudinally averaged deposited energy per unit length of ~2 mJ/m over the measured bundle length. This low average deposition, together with self-sustained filament propagation through dense fog, provides a favorable scaling route toward weather-resilient optical links. 2026-09-25T00:00:00Z Text Preprint 10.48550/arXiv.2609.31132 https://figshare.com/articles/preprint/Distributed_laser_energy_deposition_enables_fog-resilient_optical_communications/34024953 CC0