Superconducting nanowire detectors fed by single mode fibres are essential to minimize dark counts in a quantum communication receiver. Efficient coupling of the received light to the single mode fibre is fundamental for the system performance, but it gets deeply affected by the atmospheric turbulence. Adaptive Optics measure and correct for the atmosphere effect on the light optimising the fibre coupling. An Adaptive Optics system is proposed to be installed at the ground station that will receive quantum key distribution from a geostationary satellite. Numerical simulations have been performed for this scenario; the improvement in the fibre coupling have been assessed with and without atmospheric turbulence correction. The present paper encapsulates the simulation framework and main findings, showing the potential for this technology in the quantum communications niche.
A plenoptic wavefront sensor is proposed for the measurement of the atmospheric turbulence on satellite-toground optical communications. The design will be based on the outcome of the performance simulations for the specific site Teide Observatory (Spain). The performance of the plenoptic wavefront sensor is compared to a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor operating under the same conditions. Scenarios with high signal-to-noise ratio are considered with a main focus on communications with geostationary satellites. The turbulent conditions are modelled taking into account the greatest realistic range (weak and strong turbulence) at Teide Observatory in both daytime and night time. The model is defined for space-to-ground laser communications at 532 nm, 1064 nm, and 1550 nm assuming several apertures for the receiver telescope. This paper presents the numerical simulations and main findings regarding phase retrieval and wavefront sensors behaviour in weak and strong atmospheric turbulence regimes; and demonstrates the outstanding behaviour of the plenoptic camera in strong turbulence conditions.
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