Abstract

It is well known that narrow-band thermal light can be simulated by moving a ground-glass plate in front of a laser beam (a so-called quasi-thermal source). In this Letter, we show that, when time integration of intensity occurs, the spatial correlation of integrated intensity from a quasi-thermal source does not, in general, behave as it would for a real thermal source. In particular, time integration can increase the spatial coherence area.

© 1983 Optical Society of America

Probability of detecting a coherent optical signal in thermal noise

C. Bendjaballah and K. Hassan
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 73(12) 1840-1843 (1983)

Stationarity of speckle in laser refraction

R. D. Bahuguna and D. Malacara
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 73(9) 1213-1215 (1983)

Effect of spatial incoherence of the laser in photon-correlation spectroscopy

P. N. Pusey, J. M. Vaughan, and D. V. Willetts
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 73(8) 1012-1017 (1983)

Light Scattered by a Liquid Crystal: a New Quasi-Thermal Source

F. Scudieri, M. Bertolotti, and R. Bartolino
Appl. Opt. 13(1) 181-185 (1974)

Correlation distance of dynamic speckles

N. Takai, T. Iwai, and T. Asakura
Appl. Opt. 22(1) 170-177 (1983)