Coherence-polarization properties of fields radiated from transversely periodic electromagnetic sources

Abstract

Planar electromagnetic sources characterized by a periodic variation of their beam coherence-polarization matrix are investigated, as far as the polarization features of the radiated fields are concerned, within the framework of the paraxial approximation. A propagation scheme based on plane-wave decomposition leads to a longitudinal periodicity of the polarization properties of the field, thus extending the Talbot effect to the case of partially coherent electromagnetic sources. The polarization features of beams radiated from sources of this type are illustrated by means of simple examples. In particular, it is shown that completely unpolarized sources with uniform intensity profiles can be easily realized, for which the propagated field becomes perfectly polarized across some transverse planes, and vice versa.