Abstract

The speckle interferometry technique is based on the measurement of the autocorrelation function. The measurement of intervals between photoevents has been proved to be a faster alternative to the direct evaluation of the correlation function and, under certain conditions, it can provide a better signal-to-noise ratio. However, the validity of this method decreases when the delay value increases since a third-order bias is present in the autocorrelation estimate. Moreover, when detection is clipped as a result of the actual detector characteristics, another third-order bias appears. We introduce a procedure to compensate this bias produced in the autocorrelation estimate when the interval probability distribution technique is applied to clipped photocount data. The compensated autocorrelation estimate is obtained by use of a combination of the interval probability distribution and the double-interval probability distribution for a series of interval values. By means of this bias compensation it is possible to evaluate the autocorrelation function correctly for a wider range of delay values and for higher intensities.

© 1995 Optical Society of America

Interevent interval statistics in clipped detection and their applicability to speckle interferometry and speckle masking

P. Prieto and M. P. Cagigal
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 12(7) 1542-1546 (1995)

Estimation of the photon-counting hole in the autocorrelation and triple correlation of clipped data

P. Prieto and M. P. Cagigal
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 11(11) 2887-2891 (1994)

Statistical approach to bias effects in the techniques of speckle interferometry and speckle masking

Claude Aime and Eric Aristidi
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 9(10) 1812-1821 (1992)

Autocorrelation central hole estimates in nonlinear photon-counting detectors

P. M. Prieto, A. Rodriguez, and M. P. Cagigal
Opt. Lett. 20(18) 1898-1900 (1995)

Analysis of techniques for autocorrelation estimates from clipped data

P. Prieto and M. P. Cagigal
Opt. Lett. 19(15) 1101-1103 (1994)