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arXiv:1405.2381

Phase Random Walk Trace in High-order Coherence of Two First-order Incoherent Sources

Peilong Hong, Guoquan Zhang

Published May 10, 2014• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

High-order coherence effects between two first-order incoherent sources with fully independent phases have been well studied in the literature, which shows interference fringes with respect to the position separations among different space points. Here we show that this is not the whole story, and find that the high-order coherence effects depend on the mode of the phase random walk of the first-order incoherent sources, which can be controlled artificially and represented geometrically by vectorial polygons. Interestingly, by scanning the detectors along the same direction with the position separations between them kept constant, a set of high-order coherence fringes, which fingerprint the phase random walk of the first-order incoherent sources, can be observed. Our results show that it is possible to control the high-order coherence of two first-order incoherent sources, which could have important practical applications such as superhigh resolution optical lithography.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1405.2381

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Two-photon interference with independent classical sources, in which superposition of two indistinguishable two-photon paths plays a key role, is of limited visibility with a maximum value of 50%. By using a random-phase grating to modulate the wavefront of a coherent light, we introduce superposition of multiple indistinguishable two-photon paths, which enhances the two-photon interference effect with a signature of visibility exceeding 50%. The result shows the importance of phase control in the control of high-order coherence of classical light.
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