Reducing scintillation noise in free-space optical communications

An optical communication system for optically transmitting data through a variably refractive medium, the optical communication system comprising:

• a modulated optical source configured to generate a modulated beam of light to encode transmission data into a plurality of time slots,
• wherein the modulated optical source includes a waveguide that amplifies emitted light,
• the modulated beam of light emitted by the modulated optical source has a coherence length less than 400 microns,
• the modulated beam of light includes high frequency noise in a form of amplitude fluctuations, and
• the modulated beam of light has a first signal-to-noise ratio;
• and an optical amplifier,
• wherein the optical amplifier is configured to receive the modulated beam of light from the modulated optical source and both amplify and filter the modulated beam of light to produce a filtered beam of light, and
• the filtered beam has a second signal-to-noise ratio, and the second signal-to-noise ratio is at least three times as large as the first signal-to-noise ratio, and
• wherein the optical communication system is configured to transmit the filtered beam of light, through a variably refractive medium, to a detector having a photoreceiver, and the photoreceiver is configured to extract the transmission data from the filtered beam of light.