Laser communications calculators
Under construction. These calculators are new and have not been rigorously tested. Check their results independently before relying on them, and please report anything that looks wrong.
Calculators for designing free-space laser communications terminals. Each one shows its formulas and cites its source, and each result has its own link, so you can share it or come back to it.
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Optimum transmit beam waist
The Gaussian beam size that gives a centrally obscured transmit telescope its highest far-field gain, from the aperture and obscuration diameters (Klein and Degnan, 1974).
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Transmit far field
The beam a transmit telescope sends out: intensity against range, the far-field pattern in 3D, divergence, and a loss budget for obscuration, wavefront error, defocus and pointing.
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Receive: fiber coupling
How much of a received beam reaches a single-mode fiber: obscuration, optical loss, wavefront error and the coupling efficiency, with the best coupling-lens focal length.
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Gaussian beam diameter converter
Convert a Gaussian beam’s size between 1/e², 1/e, FWHM, knife-edge and encircled-power diameters, as a diameter or a radius.
More are on the way. Is there one you need? Tell me.