Photon-counting distribution under square-wave intensity modulation

John D. Kuppenheimer

Ravinder Nath, Rupendra Kumar Sharma

Sebastian Fray, F. A. Johnson, Robin Jones +2 more

The first explicit experimental verification is given of Mandel's formula relating the photon-counting distribution of a radiation field to its intensity fluctuations. This was done by measuring the counting distributions obtained from a He-Ne gas-laser beam having superimposed square- and sine-wave modulations of various depths and frequencies.

M. Á. Rebolledo, J. M. Alvarez, Julio Cesar Amare

Theoretical expressions for the factorial moments of the triggered photon-counting distribution that corresponds to a light beam with a periodically modulated intensity are derived. Two triggering procedures are considered: the time-window triggering procedure (which has been experimentally checked for Gaussian light by other authors) and the first-photopulse triggering procedure (which is a faster procedure). The theoretical expressions that correspond to the latter procedure are experimentally checked in this paper by using a square-wave signal. The errors involved in the analysis of the information contained in the light beam, when this information is obtained from the measurement of the first-order factorial moment, are studied.

GORDON J. TROUP, J. Lyons

J. Lyons, GORDON J. TROUP