Synthesis of Im-Bessel correlated beams via coherent modes.

Abstract

We present the first high-quality experimental realization of a random optical beam as a linear superposition of its coherent modes. The individual modes are generated by passing a laser beam through a phase-only spatial light modulator. A random stationary beam is obtained by using a temporally randomized sequence of its coherent modes, each contributing, on average, with a weight proportional to the corresponding mode eigenvalue. As an example, the new method is applied to a Im-Bessel correlated beam which was originally introduced in theory via the coherent mode decomposition, but could not have been experimentally generated so far by any other method.