Analysis of time-domain and spectral-domain two-beam interference including the effect of a variable spectral bandpass of a detecting system

Abstract The effect of a variable Gaussian response function of a monochromator in a detecting system with a broadband detector is included in the theoretical and experimental analysis of time-domain and spectral-domain interference of two light beams from a source of a multimode Gaussian spectrum. The time-domain theoretical analysis gives the analytic expressions for the measured complex degree of temporal coherence of the light with and without the effect of variable spectral bandpass of the detecting system. The spectral-domain theoretical analysis of the two-beam interference gives the spectral interference law from which the visibility of the spectral interference fringes resolved for a given delay in the interferometer by a spectrometer is expressed as a function of the bandpass of the spectrometer. The theoretical conclusions are confirmed experimentally in the Michelson interferometer configuration using a laser diode operated below the threshold, a prism monochromator and a p-i-n photodetector. From the width of the central peak in the measured visibility dependence that narrows with increasing slit width of the monochromator, the spectral bandpass of the monochromator is evaluated. It is also shown how the visibility of the spectral interference fringes decreases as the slit width of the prism spectrometer increases.

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