By using new theoretical point of view on cross-spectral density function of the field, the propagation of partially coherent beam produce by a plane source is investigated. Then we show, experimentally, the coherence length in the source plane can be measured directly from the far zone intensity distribution. The effects of the size and coherence of the source on beam directionality will be discussed. Our experimental results will be compared with the special case when the beam is the Gaussian Schell-Model type and it is shown that our prediction has a good agreement.

Date Published: 27 May 2003
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 4933, Speckle Metrology 2003, (27 May 2003); doi: 10.1117/12.516579

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4933:
Speckle Metrology 2003
Kay Gastinger; Ole Johan Lokberg; Svein Winther, Editor(s)