  Structured fields that are spatially completely coherent have been
extensively studied in the context of long-distance optical communication as
the structure in the intensity profile of such fields is used for encoding
information. This method of doing optical communication works very well in the
absence of turbulence. However, in the presence of turbulence, the intensity
structures of such fields start to degrade because of the complete spatial
coherence of the field, and this structural degradation increases with the
increase in the turbulence strength. On the other hand, several theoretical
studies have now shown that the structured fields that are spatially only
partially coherent are less affected by turbulence. However, no such
experimental demonstration has been reported until now. In this letter, we
experimentally demonstrate the structural robustness of partially coherent
fields in the presence of turbulence, and we show that for a given turbulence
strength the structural robustness of a partially coherent field increases as
the spatial coherence length of the field is decreased.
