Theory of coherence and polarization in stationary random electromagnetic fields is reviewed. Degree of coherence for electromagnetic fields is examined in the space–time domain and the conditions for complete coherence are discussed. The space–time domain correlation matrix is then transformed to the corresponding space–frequency domain quantity, the cross-spectral density matrix, which is the...

Simultaneous spatial and spectral filtering by an optical resonant filter has been characterized experimentally to furnish additional insight into the operation and applications of optical resonant filters. Our experimental study can be useful for applications that depend on spatial filtering, spectral filtering, spatial-spectral filtering, and polarization selectivity. One significant applicat...

Clinical examination alone is not always sufficient to determine which burn wounds will heal spontaneously and which will require surgical intervention for optimal outcome. We present a review of optical modalities currently in clinical use and under development to assist burn surgeons in assessing burn wound severity, including conventional histology/light microscopy, laser Doppler imaging, in...

We demonstrate that 2D distributions of non-spherical near-coalescence silver nanoparticles (NPs) embedded in an ultrathin dielectric film can be reorganized, shaped and aligned by exposure to ultrashort laser pulses. As-grown samples prepared by pulsed laser deposition show a broad absorption band with a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) at 650 nm, which can be blue-shifted down to 440 nm and tr...

Under NASA's Instrument Incubator Program (IIP), we are developing an electro-optical imaging approach to enable multiangle, multispectral, and polarimetric measurements of tropospheric aerosol column abundances and microphysical properties. From low Earth orbit, the measurements would be acquired from the ultraviolet to shortwave infrared at ~1 km spatial resolution over a broad swath. To achi...

A family of modulation formats is derived by combining pulse-position modulation (PPM) with multilevel dual-polarization signal constellations. With 16-PPM, gains of up to 5.4 dB are obtained over dual-polarization QPSK, at the cost of reduced spectral efficiency.

We compare measurements of the phase-angle dependencies of the intensity and degree of linear polarization of particles in air and particulate surfaces. The samples were measured at two spectral bands centered near 0.63 and 0.45 mm. The surfaces were measured with the new photometer/polarimeter at the Astronomical Institute of Kharkov National University. The scattering measurements of the part...

We present preliminary results from a programme aimed at acquiring linear spectropolarimetry of magnetic A and B stars. Linear polarization in the spectral lines of these objects is due to the Zeeman effect, and should provide detailed new information regarding the structure of their strong magnetic fields. To illustrate the impact of these new data, we compare observed circular and linear pola...

We demonstrate that dual-channel spectral interferometry in conjunction with a well-characterized reference pulse can be used to time resolve the polarization state of extremely weak ultrashort coherent signals from linear-and nonlinear-optical experiments by measuring the intensity and the phase of two orthogonal polarization components. In this way the signal is completely characterized.