Open AccessTheory of two beam interference with arbitrary spectra
Author(s) -
Zhongliang Hu,
Andrew M. Rollins
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.14.012751
Subject(s) - optics , coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) , interferometry , interference (communication) , physics , gaussian , spectral line , degree of coherence , coherence length , coherence theory , coherence time , refractive index , beam (structure) , computational physics , quantum mechanics , telecommunications , computer science , channel (broadcasting) , superconductivity
A new formulation describing the interference term of a two beam interferometer with unequal Gaussian spectra propagating in different dispersive media is provided by defining a composite standard deviation and a composite center frequency of the interfering spectra. This formulation is generalized to arbitrary spectra by decomposing each spectrum into a linear composition of Gaussian distributions. The effective phase and group delays indicate the effect of the unequal spectral distributions and the dispersive media. An effective coherence length is derived, different than the coherence lengths of the interfering fields. The accuracy of the new formulation is proven experimentally by using optical coherence tomography systems.