Experimental study of coherence vortices: local properties of phase singularities in a spatial coherence function.

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.

[1]  Spatial correlation properties of focused partially coherent light. , 2004, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[2]  Mitsuo Takeda,et al.  Experimental investigation of local properties and statistics of optical vortices in random wave fields. , 2005, Physical review letters.

[3]  A S Marathay,et al.  Spatial correlation singularity of a vortex field. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[4]  Mark R. Dennis,et al.  Local properties and statistics of phase singularities in generic wavefields , 2001, Other Conferences.

[5]  Yuri S. Kivshar,et al.  Spatial coherence singularities and incoherent vortex solitons , 2004, nlin/0410051.

[6]  M. A. Oldfield,et al.  Natural demodulation of two-dimensional fringe patterns. I. General background of the spiral phase quadrature transform. , 2001, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[7]  S. Ponomarenko,et al.  A class of partially coherent beams carrying optical vortices. , 2001, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[8]  Emil Wolf,et al.  Partially coherent vortex beams with a separable phase. , 2003, Optics letters.

[9]  J Rosen,et al.  Longitudinal spatial coherence applied for surface profilometry. , 2000, Applied optics.

[10]  Girish S. Agarwal,et al.  SU(2) structure of the Poincaré sphere for light beams with orbital angular momentum , 1999 .

[11]  M. Berry,et al.  Dislocations in wave trains , 1974, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

[12]  Parameterization and orbital angular momentum of anisotropic dislocations , 1996 .

[13]  L. Torner,et al.  Propagation and control of noncanonical optical vortices. , 2001, Optics letters.

[14]  T. Visser,et al.  Coherence vortices in partially coherent beams , 2003 .

[15]  M. Takeda,et al.  Fourier-transform method of fringe-pattern analysis for computer-based topography and interferometry , 1982 .

[16]  David M. Palacios,et al.  Spatial correlation vortices in partially coherent light: Theory , 2004 .

[17]  Greg Gbur,et al.  Phase singularities of the coherence functions in Young's interference pattern. , 2003, Optics letters.

[18]  Mark R. Dennis,et al.  Phase singularities in isotropic random waves , 2000, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.