Generation and characterization of structured light in the partially coherent regime

Abstract

Various experimental methods to shape partially coherent optical beams as well as some techniques to study their characteristic properties and spatial coherence are introduced. To generate partially coherent optical beams, digital holography and a rotating ground glass are used, which let us easily change the beams spatial coherence and in order to study their properties the cross-correlation function (CCF) is used. The CCF is studied numerically, analytically and experimentally with a wave front folding interferometer, which leads us to dislocations that provide interesting information about the beam, like some of the characteristic indices that form the beam, or the spatial coherence length. These methods are used to study different kinds of optical beams, mostly vortex beams and their variants; we also study some solutions of the paraxial wave equation, such as the Ince-Gaussian beams.