Measuring the Phase of Spatially Coherent Polychromatic Fields
Year: 2002
Type: article
Abstract: Realistic optical fields are never completely monochromatic and the interpretation of the concept of phase is not straightforward. It has been pointed out by Wolf that, if a strict condition of spatial coherence is imposed, the statistically averaged behavior of a polychromatic field can be described by an associated monochromatic wave. We show that, for spatially coherent polychromatic optical fields, the measurement of the phase of the second-order correlations determines the phase of this associated, spatially coherent field. We verify this prediction using a novel interferometric technique for measuring the cross-spectral density of a steady-state optical field.
Source: Physical Review Letters
Authors: Aristide Dogariu, Gabriel Popescu
Institution: University of Central Florida
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2083882550