Abstract

Diffraction and interferometry with fast pulses are analyzed for the case that the fields are partially correlated in time and in space. This generalizes a previous work [ Schoonover et al., J. Mod. Opt. 55, 1541 (2008) ], where only the temporal correlations of pulsed fields were considered in a Young’s interferometer. The meaning of the interferograms is addressed for measurements taken in the near, Fresnel, and far zones of the source. It is shown that single-shot measurements cannot generally be used to infer statistical properties of the source, rather, data averaged over many pulses must be used.

© 2009 Optical Society of America

The generalized Wolf shift for cyclostationary fields

Robert W. Schoonover, Brynmor J. Davis, and P. Scott Carney
Opt. Express 17(6) 4705-4711 (2009)

Intensity spectra after first-order dispersion of composite models of scalar cyclostationary light

Carlos R. Fernández-Pousa
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 26(4) 993-1007 (2009)

Coherence properties of nonstationary light wave fields

Leonid Sereda, Mario Bertolotti, and Aldo Ferrari
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 15(3) 695-705 (1998)

General interference law for nonstationary, separable optical fields

Vladimir Manea
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 26(9) 1907-1914 (2009)

Theory of spatially and spectrally partially coherent pulses

Hanna Lajunen, Pasi Vahimaa, and Jani Tervo
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 22(8) 1536-1545 (2005)