Propagation of partially coherent beams after a source plane ring aperture

Abstract

The propagation properties of partially coherent beams passing through a source placed ring aperture are examined. The derivation is based on the lowest order general beam formulation, such that our results are applicable to a wide range of beam. In this study, our focus is on fundamental Gaussian, cosh-Gaussian, cos-Gaussian, sinh-Gaussian, sine-Gaussian and annular beams. The aperture consists of inner and outer parts, thus the middle hollow part appears in the form of a ring. The propagation environment is turbulent. From the graphical outputs of the beams investigated, it is seen that despite the existence of the circular ring, during propagation, the beams tend to retain the basic profiles similar to the case of no aperture, but depending on the inner and outer radius dimensions, the propagated beams are reduced in intensity levels and become more spread. It is further observed that, when the inner part of the aperture has nonzero radius, ring formations are developed at the outer edges of the receiver plane intensities.