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Physical Review A

Super-resolving interference without intensity-correlation measurement

De-Zhong Cao, Baolong Xu, Su-Heng Zhang, Kaige Wang

Published May 28, 2015• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The high-order intensity correlation function of $N$-photon interference with thermal light observed in a recent experiment [S. Oppel, T. B\"uttner, P. Kok, and J. von Zanthier, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 233603 (2012)] is analyzed. The terms in the expansion of the $N\mathrm{th}$-order correlation function are put into three groups. One group contributes a homogeneous background. Both of the other two contribute $(N\ensuremath{-}1)$-fold super-resolving fringes. In principle they correspond to coherent and incoherent superpositions of classical optical fields, respectively. Therefore similar super-resolving fringes can be obtained without intensity-correlation measurements. We report the experimental results of the coherent and incoherent super-resolving diffraction fringes, which are observed directly in the intensity distribution. The $N\ensuremath{-}1$ sources in both the coherent and incoherent cases are set in certain definite positions. In the coherent case, moreover, the phase difference between two adjacent source fields is $\ensuremath{\pi}$. The fringe visibility is unity in the incoherent case, while it decreases as $N$ increases in the incoherent case.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.91.053853

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