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Annual Meeting Optical Society of America

Coherence properties of one-dimensional pulses in dispersive media

Weijian Wang, E. Wolf

Published Jan 1, 1988• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In recent years longitudinal coherence of electron and neutron wave packets has been investigated,1,2 and it was shown that their coherence length remains unchanged even though the length of the wave packet increases on propagation.3,4 As pointed out in Ref. 3, one may expect that a similar result will hold for light that propagates in a dispersive medium. We present some new general theorems relating to an ensemble of identical 1-D optical pulses which propagate in a linear homogeneous medium of any given dispersive properties. In particular we derive a general expression for the mutual coherence function and for the cross-spectral density function of the pulse field in the medium in terms of the Fourier spectrum of a single pulse shape. The analysis brings out clearly the distinction (already noted in Ref. 4) between the coherence length and the coherence time of fields in dispersive media. We also show that the pulse field is spatially completely coherent at each frequency, even though the shape of each pulse changes on propagation. The results have potential application to interferometry with optical pulses and with de Broglie wave packets of elementary particles.

DOI
10.1364/oam.1988.tuu4

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In recent years longitudinal coherence of electron and neutron wave packets has been investigated,1,2 and it was shown that their coherence length remains unchanged even though the length of the wave packet increases on propagation.3,4 As pointed out in Ref. 3, one may expect that a similar result will hold for light that propagates in a dispersive medium. We present some new general theorems relating to an ensemble of identical 1-D optical pulses which propagate in a linear homogeneous medium of any given dispersive properties. In particular we derive a general expression for the mutual coherence function and for the cross-spectral density function of the pulse field in the medium in terms of the Fourier spectrum of a single pulse shape. The analysis brings out clearly the distinction (already noted in Ref. 4) between the coherence length and the coherence time of fields in dispersive media. We also show that the pulse field is spatially completely coherent at each frequency, even though the shape of each pulse changes on propagation. The results have potential application to interferometry with optical pulses and with de Broglie wave packets of elementary particles.
This paper is concerned with one-dimensional random fields consisting of randomly distributed identical light pulses which propagate in a linear dispersive medium. It is shown that such fields are necessarily stationary and that their power spectra and their longitudinal coherence properties do not change on propagation. The invariance of the power spectrum and of the coherence properties are shown to apply more generally to any one-dimensional stationary field of any state of coherence, propagating in a linear dispersive medium. Some invariance properties of nondiffracting partially coherent fields in dispersive media and of partially coherent fields in lossless fibers are also discussed.
For the nondispersive propagation of waves in one dimension, there is no essential difference between the concepts of longitudinal and temporal coherence, and these terms are often used interchangeably. For the dispersive propagation of waves, such as electrons or neutrons in vacuo, or light in a medium, this is no longer the case. We analyze the coherence properties of a dispersively propagating beam of radiation, and discuss the observation of its spatial and temporal coherence properties by means of a two-beam interferometer.
Summary form only given. A small-area femtosecond pulse propagates in a dispersive medium in a coherent fashion, if the relaxation times of the medium are compared with the pulse length for a long time. As a result, the pulse will be reshaped. This has been described by linear dispersion theory. Using Rydberg states of a molecular or an atomic gas as dispersive medium, the large spectral width of the femtosecond pulse can overlap with more than one level simultaneously. In this case, the shape of the propagated pulse reflects the temporal evolution of the Rydberg wave packet formed by the resonant Rydberg states.
For pt.I see ibid., vol.10, p.425 (1977). The effect of spatial dispersion or exciton formation on the steady propagation of a coherent light pulse in a dielectric medium is studied. The optical Bloch equation for a lattice of atomic dipoles coupled to one another by an exchange-type interaction is solved simultaneously with the Maxwell equation by the method of power-series expansion developed in the preceding paper. Two kinds of pulse solutions are obtained in general: one propagating by the medium of the radiation field and the other by excitation transfer between atomic dipoles. The former solution is SIT-like in the short pulse limit, but a polariton-soliton or a standing wave of non-linear polariton if the pulse width is long. The latter is an exciton-soliton containing little photon component. When the pulse width is extremely long, there appears a polariton-soliton of a new type in which the two propagation mechanisms are mixed. It is found that the spatial dispersion prevents the polariton-soliton solutions from existing in a certain frequency range. This effect is explained on the basis of the functional behavior of the dispersion relation of the non-linear polariton.
This tutorial gives an overview of the use of the Wigner function as a tool for modeling optical field propagation. Particular emphasis is placed on the spatial propagation of stationary fields, as well as on the propagation of pulses through dispersive media. In the first case, the Wigner function gives a representation of the field that is similar to a radiance or weight distribution for all the rays in the system, since its arguments are both position and direction. In cases in which the field is paraxial and where the system is described by a simple linear relation in the ray regime, the Wigner function is constant under propagation along rays. An equivalent property holds for optical pulse propagation in dispersive media under analogous assumptions. Several properties and applications of the Wigner function in these contexts are discussed, as is its connection with other common phase-space distributions like the ambiguity function, the spectrogram, and the Husimi, P, Q, and Kirkwood–Rihaczek functions. Also discussed are modifications to the definition of the Wigner function that allow extending the property of conservation along paths to a wider range of problems, including nonparaxial field propagation and pulse propagation within general transparent dispersive media.