Experimental Study of Coherence Vortices: Local Properties of Phase Singularities in a Spatial Coherence Function

Wei Wang, Zhihui Duan, Steen G. Hanson, Yoko Miyamoto, and Mitsuo Takeda

Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 073902 – Published 22 February 2006

Abstract

By controlling the irradiance of an extended quasimonochromatic, spatially incoherent source, an optical field is generated that exhibits spatial coherence with phase singularities, called coherence vortices. A simple optical geometry for direct visualization of coherence vortices is proposed, and the local properties and the spatial evolution of coherence vortex are experimentally investigated. To our knowledge, this is the first direct and quantitative experimental measurement of a generic coherence vortex.

Received 1 September 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.073902

Authors & Affiliations

Wei Wang¹, Zhihui Duan¹, Steen G. Hanson², Yoko Miyamoto¹, and Mitsuo Takeda¹

¹Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Laboratory for Information Photonics and Wave Signal Processing, The University of Electro-Communications, 1-5-1, Chofugaoka, Chofu, Tokyo, 182-8585, Japan
²Optics and Plasma Research Department, Risoe National Laboratory, OPL-128, P.O. Box 49, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark

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Issue

Vol. 96, Iss. 7 — 24 February 2006

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