Abstract
We give an overview of optical heterodyne techniques, which provide phasesensitive methods to characterize light fields with a high signal-to-noise ratio and a large dynamic range. We present basic applications such as OCT, OCM and CDOCT. We then introduce Wigner functions, which fully characterize a light field including its coherence properties, and demonstrate two techniques which enable the measurement of smoothed (One-Window method) and true Wigner functions (Two-Window technique). We conclude this chapter with the characterization of a Gaussian-Schell beam, an enhanced-backscattered field and a single speckle, using the Two-Window technique.
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Notes
- 1.
1 The Rayleigh length is the distance after which a beam passing through its beamwaist grows to twice its area. It is inversely proportional to the size of the beamwaist.
- 2.
2 This is non-trivial since the depth-dependent refractive index in the sample influences the depth of the focal plane, which has to be taken into account when adjusting the relative path delay between the signal- and local oscillator beam.
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© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Reil, F., Thomas, J.E. (2004). Heterodyne Techniques for Characterizing Light Fields. In: Tuchin, V.V. (eds) Handbook of Coherent Domain Optical Methods. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-29989-0_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-29989-0_8
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