Abstract

When an amplitude-stabilized He–Ne laser beam is scattered by a rotating ground glass with small surface inhomogeneities, the probability density of the instantaneous scattered-wave amplitude is gaussian. This has been verified experimentally in the past few years by several independent groups. In this paper, we suggest the use of the joint photon-count probability distribution p (n = 0, m = 0, τ) to measure the absolute value of the electric-field amplitude-correlation function for random gaussian light fields, and report the results of an experiment in which the gaussian field is produced by scattering a light beam through a rotating ground glass. This procedure offers an alternative to other conventional methods, such as self-beating spectroscopy and irradiance-correlation techniques. The correlation time of the scattered-field amplitude in the present experiment has been measured with an accuracy of approximately 0.8%.

© 1972 Optical Society of America

Photon-Count Distributions and Irradiance Fluctuations of a Log-Normally Distributed Light Field*

Van Bluemel, Lorenzo M. Narducci, and Richard A. Tuft
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 62(11) 1309-1314 (1972)

Scattering of Light from a Rotating Ground Glass*

Lee E. Estes, Lorenzo M. Narducci, and Richard A. Tuft
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 61(10) 1301-1306 (1971)

Sequential photon-counting statistics and maximum-likelihood estimation techniques for gaussian optical fields*

F. Davidson and J. Amoss
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 63(1) 30-37 (1973)

Reduction of Fluorescence Background in Raman Spectra by the Pulsed Raman Technique*

Perry Pappas Yaney
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 62(11) 1297-1303 (1972)

Transmittance Characteristics of Surface Diffusers and the Design of Nearly Band-Limited Binary Diffusers*

C. N. Kurtz
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 62(8) 982-989 (1972)