title: Laser spot dynamics.
abstract: The dynamics of a pulsed laser spot covering an optical aperture of a receiver is analyzed. This analysis includes the influence of diffraction, jitter, atmospheric absorption and scattering, and atmospheric turbulence. A simple expression for the probability of response of the receiver illuminated by the laser spot is derived. It is found that this probability would not always increase as the laser beam divergence decreases. Moreover, this probability has an optimum (maximum) with respect to the laser beam divergence or rather with respect to the diameter of the transmitting optics.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Postan