Effect of partial coherence on diffraction intensity of a Gaussian Schell-model beam using two-level atomic grating

Abstract

The role of spatial coherence on diffraction intensity is investigated for a partially coherent incident Gaussian Schell-model beam which is diffracted from a two-level atomic grating. It is shown that the performance of the atomic grating is greatly influenced by the spectral coherence width of the partially coherent fields. It is observed that relatively large intensity of the diffracted light can be obtained via spatial coherence, beam width, interaction length, and mode index of partially coherent incident light. The scheme provides possibilities for the potential applications of atomic grating in lensless imaging using the partially coherent light field.