Abstract

Electrically addressed spatial light modulators (EASLM’s) are currently used in many coherent optical signal processing applications. Within the EASLM the input signal is generally transformed in a nonlinear fashion. The noise on the input signal that is sent to the EASLM is then also transformed nonlinearly. In particular, even with additive and homogeneous input noise, the color of the noise as well as the signal-to-noise ratio of the input signal can be significantly modified. We propose a new general formalism for the determination of the spatial covariance of the optical field that is due to nonlinear transformation of the input noise. Applications of this new formalism are illustrated for Gaussian correlated noise.

© 1995 Optical Society of America

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