Coherence physics: Encyclopedia - Coherence physics

Coherence (physics)

Coherence is a property of waves that measures the ability of the waves to interfere with each other.

Coherence physics - Explanation

Two waves that are coherent can be combined to produce an unmoving distribution of constructive and destructive interference (a visible interference pattern) depending on the relative phase of the waves at their meeting point. When combined, waves that are incoherent produce rapidly moving areas of constructive and destructive interference and therefore do not produce a visible interference pattern. Truly monochromatic plane waves with exactly the same frequency are always coherent, but waves do not have to be monochromatic in order to be coherent with each other.

Coherence physics - Full coherence

Two non-monochromatic waves are fully coherent with each other if they both have exactly the same range of wavelengths and the same phase difference at each constituent wavelength. For waves to be coherent with each other, they generally must either both come from, or be phase-locked to, the same source (e.g. the sunlight passing through the two slits of Young's double-slit experiment), or be monochromatic with precisely the same frequency (e.g. two extremely stable oscillators—two or more different sources can only be used to produce interference when there is a fixed phase relation between them (they are phase-locked), but in this case the interference generated is the same as with a single source; see Huygens's principle).

Coherence physics - Temporal coherence

A wave can also be coherent with itself, a property known as temporal coherence. If a wave is combined with a delayed copy of itself (as in a Michelson interferometer), the duration of the delay over which it produces visible interference is known as the coherence time of the wave, Δt_c. From this, a corresponding coherence length can be calculated:

where c is the speed of the wave.

The temporal coherence of a wave is related to the spectral bandwidth of the source. A truly monochromatic (single frequency) wave would have an infinite coherence time and length (see second diagram on right which shows parts of truly monochromatic waves delayed by different amounts, which remain fully coherent with each other). In practice, no wave is truly monochromatic (since this requires a wavetrain of infinite duration), but in general, the coherence time of the source is inversely proportional to its bandwidth. The most monochromatic sources are usually lasers, and thus have the longest coherence times. Not all lasers are monochromatic, however. LEDs are less monochromatic than the most-monochromatic lasers, and tungsten filament lights are even less monochromatic, and so these sources have shorter coherence times than the most-monochromatic lasers.

Coherence physics - Spatial coherence

Waves also have the related property of spatial coherence; this is the ability of any one spatial position of the wavefront to interfere with any other spatial position. Young's double-slit experiment relies on spatial coherence of the beam illuminating the two slits; if the beam was spatially incoherent—i.e. if the sunlight was not first passed through a single slit—then no interference pattern would be seen.

Spatial coherence is high for spherical waves and plane waves as it is related to the wavelength, size and coherence of the light source. A non-monochromatic point source of zero diameter emits spatially coherent light, while the light from a collection of mutualy incoherent point-sources which are resolved by the imaging system would have lower coherence (as the point sources are not coherent with each other, the resulting light has low spatial coherence). If multiple point sources are coherent with each other (e.g. they are the slits in a Young's slit experiment) then there is no loss of spatial coherence from having multiple point sources. An incoherent source of finite size can be thought of as an arrangement of many different incoherent point sources making up the finite size of the source (like many pixels making up an image of the source). Spatial coherence can be increased with a spatial filter; a very small pinhole preceded by a condenser lens which excludes all light apart from that coming from a central "pixel", thus converting a source of finite size into a point source. The spatial coherence of light will increase as it travels away from the source as the source appears smaller (more pointlike) and the waves become more like a sphere or plane wave. Light from pointlike stars, though far from monochromatic, have extremely high spatial coherence, while light from binary stars or stars with finite size have lower spatial coherence. The science of stellar interferometry measures the spatial coherence of starlight and uses it to determine which stars consist of two or more points (these are binaries or multiple stars) or to measure the diameter of stars. In some cases images of the surfaces of stars can be made from these interferometric measurements.

Light waves produced by a laser often have high temporal and spatial coherence (though the degree of coherence depends strongly on the exact properties of the laser). For example, a stabilised helium-neon laser can produce light with coherence lengths in excess of 5 m. Light from common sources (such as light bulbs) is not monochromatic and has a very short coherence length (~1 μm), and can be considered totally temporally incoherent for most purposes. Spatial coherence of laser beams also manifests itself as speckle patterns and diffraction fringes seen at the edges of shadow.

Holography requires temporally and spatially coherent light. Its inventor, Dennis Gabor, produced successful holograms more than ten years before lasers were invented. To produce coherent light he passed the monochromatic light from an emission line of a mercury-vapor lamp through a pinhole spatial filter.

Coherence physics - Quantum coherence

Quantum mechanics shows that all objects are waves and therefore may, like light and sound, be coherent. Quantum coherence is usually not seen on a macroscopic scale.

Category: Wave mechanics

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Coherence physics", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki