Spatial correlation properties of focused partially coherent light

Abstract

We investigate the spatial coherence properties in the focal region of a converging, spatially partially coherent wave field. In particular, we find that, depending on the effective coherence length of the field in the aperture, the longitudinal and transverse coherence lengths in the focal region can be either larger or smaller than the corresponding width of the intensity distribution. Also, the correlation function is shown to exhibit phase singularities.