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Bell's measure in classical optical coherence

Nature Photonics volume 7, pages 72–78 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

The statistical description of optical fields in classical coherence theory is the foundation for many applications in metrology, microscopy, lithography and astronomy. Partial coherence is commonly attributed to underlying fluctuations originating at the source or arising upon passage through a random medium. A less acknowledged source of uncertainty (partial coherence) stems from the act of ignoring a degree of freedom of a beam when observing another degree of freedom coupled to (or classically entangled with) it. We demonstrate here that Bell's measure, which is commonly used in tests of quantum non-locality, may be used as a quantitative tool in classical optical coherence to delineate native incoherence associated with statistical fluctuations from correlation- (or, entanglement-) based incoherence. Our results demonstrate the applicability of the concepts recently developed in quantum information science to classical optical coherence theory and optical signal processing.

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Figure 1: Experimental setup.
Figure 2: Experiment A: coherent beam with coupled polarization and parity.
Figure 3: Experiment B: partially coherent beam with coupled parity and polarization.
Figure 4: Experiment C: beam with random parity-polarization coupling.
Figure 5: Parameterizing partially coherent beams by Spol, Spar and S.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank A. Dogariu and J.W. Goodman for useful discussions, and A. Dogariu and W.V. Schoenfeld for the loan of equipment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CREOL, The College of Optics & Photonics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, 32816, Florida, USA

    Kumel H. Kagalwala, Giovanni Di Giuseppe, Ayman F. Abouraddy & Bahaa E. A. Saleh

  2. Physics Division, School of Science and Technology, University of Camerino, Camerino, 62032, Italy

    Giovanni Di Giuseppe

Authors
  1. Kumel H. Kagalwala
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  2. Giovanni Di Giuseppe
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  3. Ayman F. Abouraddy
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  4. Bahaa E. A. Saleh
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Contributions

A.F.A. and B.E.A.S. conceived the idea and directed the project. K.H.K. and G.D.G. carried out the experiments and the theoretical calculations. All authors contributed to analysing the results and writing the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ayman F. Abouraddy or Bahaa E. A. Saleh.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Kagalwala, K., Di Giuseppe, G., Abouraddy, A. et al. Bell's measure in classical optical coherence. Nature Photon 7, 72–78 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2012.312

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