Spatial interference: from coherent to incoherent.
We report an optical interference experiment which seems to contradict our common knowledge, in that the formation of the interference pattern originates from a spatially incoherent light source. Our experimental scheme is very similar to Gabor's original proposal of holography [Nature (London) 161, 777 (1948)], except that an incoherent source replaces the coherent one. Though an instantaneous interference pattern between an object wave and reference wave fluctuates irregularly, a well-defined pattern appears in the statistical average, in accord with a hologram in the coherent light case.
Zhang
Su-Heng
SH
Department of Physics, Applied Optics Beijing Area Major Laboratory, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
Gao
Lu
L
Xiong
Jun
J
Feng
Li-Juan
LJ
Cao
De-Zhong
DZ
Wang
Kaige
K