5,344 research outputs found
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
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