Abstract
Far-zone range criteria are derived for the radiant intensity and imaginary and real parts of the cross-spectral density function characterizing the radiation field of a partially coherent, quasihomogenous radiation source. These criteria, derived from Rayleigh-Sommerfeld diffraction theory, specify minimum ranges that must be exceeded to obtain accurate far-zone measurements of the aforementioned field quantities. Specific range criteria are calculated (in terms of the wave number, source coherence length, and source dimension) for sources having a Gaussian and negative exponential intensity distribution. These calculations indicate order-of-magnitude, far-zone criteria for general source-intensity distributions.
© 1978 Optical Society of America
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