Phase Reversal Diffraction in incoherent light

Phase reversal occurs in the propagation of an electromagnetic wave in a negatively refracting medium or a phase-conjugate interface. Here we report the experimental observation of phase reversal diffraction without the above devices. Our experimental results and theoretical analysis demonstrate that phase reversal diffraction can be formed through the first-order field correlation of chaotic light. The experimental realization is similar to phase reversal behavior in negatively refracting media.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Experimental Observation of Classical Sub-Wavelength Interference with Thermal-Like Light

We show the experimental observation of the classical sub-wavelength double-slit interference with a pseudo-thermal light source. The experimental results are in agreement with the recent theoretical prediction shown in quant-ph/0404078 (to be appeared in Phys. Rev. A).Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Spatial Interference: From Coherent To Incoherent

It is well known that direct observation of interference and diffraction pattern in the intensity distribution requires a spatially coherent source. Optical waves emitted from portions beyond the coherence area possess statistically independent phases, and will degrade the interference pattern. In this paper we show an optical interference experiment, which seems contrary to our common knowledge, that the formation of the interference pattern is related to a spatially incoherent light source. Our experimental scheme is very similar to Gabor's original proposal of holography[1], just with an incoherent source replacing the coherent one. In the statistical ensemble of the incoherent source, each sample field produces a sample interference pattern between object wave and reference wave. These patterns completely differ from each other due to the fluctuation of the source field distribution. Surprisingly, the sum of a great number of sample patterns exhibits explicitly an interference pattern, which contains all the information of the object and is equivalent to a hologram in the coherent light case. In this sense our approach would be valuable in holography and other interference techniques for the case where coherent source is unavailable, such as x-ray and electron sources.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure