Phase Random Walk Trace in High-order Coherence of Two First-order Incoherent Sources

TL;DR

This paper reveals that high-order coherence effects between incoherent sources depend on the phase random walk mode, which can be controlled and visualized geometrically, enabling new control over optical coherence phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces the concept that phase random walk modes influence high-order coherence, providing a geometric representation and demonstrating controllability of coherence fringes.

Findings

High-order coherence fringes depend on phase random walk modes.

Control of phase random walk affects high-order coherence.

Potential applications in superhigh resolution optical lithography.

Abstract

High-order coherence effects between two first-order incoherent sources with fully independent phases have been well studied in the literature, which shows interference fringes with respect to the position separations among different space points. Here we show that this is not the whole story, and find that the high-order coherence effects depend on the mode of the phase random walk of the first-order incoherent sources, which can be controlled artificially and represented geometrically by vectorial polygons. Interestingly, by scanning the detectors along the same direction with the position separations between them kept constant, a set of high-order coherence fringes, which fingerprint the phase random walk of the first-order incoherent sources, can be observed. Our results show that it is possible to control the high-order coherence of two first-order incoherent sources, which could have important practical applications such as superhigh resolution optical lithography.