A Finnish collaboration has introduced and tested a new technique for generating tailored partially coherent beams using metasurfaces. In recent years, researchers have shown that beams with partial spatial coherence can possess unusual propagation characteristics such as self-focusing that can be beneficial for a variety of optical applications. However, it is typically challenging to produce a beam with a desired spatial coherence structure, and there have been no techniques introduced that can in principle produce any state of coherence desired.

In this article, the researchers at Tampere University and the University of Eastern Finland show that it is possible to convert a standard partially coherent beam, with a Gaussian correlation function, into a wide variety of other types of partially coherent beams through the interaction with a binary Bragg metasurface. They demonstrate their method experimentally, generating two distinct types of unusual partially coherent beams, and also indicate how this method could be used to produce partially coherent beams of any type. Their results will make spatial coherence another viable tool to be used in the creation of novel structured light beams.

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