Is there a fundamental limitation on the measurement of spatial coherence for highly incoherent fields?
We investigate a fundamental limitation on the measurement of spatial coherence for highly incoherent fields. We model the near-field detection scheme, required for such a measurement, with pointlike induced dipoles. We find that this fully vector model sets a characteristic length scale beyond which the spatial coherence of an optical field cannot be accurately measured. This length scale forms an uncertainty relationship with the photodetector integration time.