Young's interference experiment for generating light with non-uniform coherence states.

Abstract

Up to now, methods for generating non-uniformly correlated light have been of two kinds: one is based on the use of specially designed random phase screens, and the other relies on the coherent-mode superposition, both being very complex experimental procedures. In this Letter, we show both theoretically and experimentally that in Young's interference experiment with light having a sufficiently large transverse coherence width, as compared with the width of the slits, the initially uniformly correlated partially coherent light converts to a non-uniformly correlated light. Such a non-uniform correlation is induced by the interference of light fields originating from the two slits. Our results point to the possibility of using diffraction by specially tailored deterministic aperture arrays for generating light with exotic coherence states.