Abstract

A class of partially coherent spherical sources is introduced whose cross-spectral density across the surface has a modal expansion made up of spherical harmonics. For such sources, the solution of the propagation problem in all the outer spaces can be written through a series of the propagated modes, which maintains the spherical harmonic structure. The main features of this class of cross-spectral densities are derived illustrating their coherence properties with examples. Attention is paid to the properties of radial coherence. In particular, it is clearly shown that sources with perfect radial coherence exist with angular coherence that is only partial.

© 2022 Optica Publishing Group

Coherence properties of the electric field generated by an incoherent source of currents distributed on the surface of a sphere

Jorge R. Zurita-Sánchez
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 33(1) 118-130 (2016)

Coherent-mode decomposition of partially polarized, partially coherent sources

Franco Gori, Massimo Santarsiero, Raja Simon, Gemma Piquero, Riccardo Borghi, and Giorgio Guattari
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 20(1) 78-84 (2003)

Coherent mode decomposition of multiple quantum well light emission

Quang Nguyen, Kevin Liang, Tanya Malhotra, Anurag Tyagi, James R. Bonar, and A. N. Vamivakas
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 39(12) C190-C196 (2022)

Rotation of degree of coherence and redistribution of transverse energy flux induced by non-circular degree of coherence of twisted partially coherent sources

Gaofeng Wu, Haiyun Wang, Fei Wang, and Yangjian Cai
Opt. Express 30(3) 3913-3925 (2022)

Shifted-elementary-mode representation for partially coherent vectorial fields

Jani Tervo, Jari Turunen, Pasi Vahimaa, and Frank Wyrowski
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 27(9) 2004-2014 (2010)