Recovery of Schell-model partially coherent beams

Abstract

Partially coherent light is often preferable to its completely coherent counterpart in applications such as imaging, sensing, and free-space optical communications. To fully exploit its advantages, techniques able to retrieve information carried by the beam are required. Here, we develop and experimentally demonstrate a phase-space optics technique for complete spatial analysis of widely used Schell-model beams. It allows for fast information recovery and can be applied for quantitative phase imaging of objects under partially coherent illumination.