Spatial and temporal coherence in optical parametric devices pumped with multimode beams

Abstract

We investigate the emergence of spatial and temporal coherence for the fields in the noncritical nondegenerate parametric second-order down-conversion process pumped with low spatial and temporal coherence beams. It is shown that in this scenario, which is of considerable practical importance, the parametric gain in the near field breaks down into an ensemble of mutually incoherent beamlets containing parametric waves. The field generated in a single beamlet is fully spatially coherent. The size of such coherent parametric gain regions is governed by the near-field spatial coherence radius of the pump, which also acts as a parameter, restraining the linear diffraction of the parametric waves generated in the nonlinear interaction. Furthermore, we experimentally demonstrate how the spatial and temporal coherence can be substantially enhanced by manipulating the spatial field correlation of the multilongitudinal and multi-transversal mode pump.