Tomohiro SHIRAI and Christopher DAINTY¹

Photonics Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, 1-2-1 Namiki, Tsukuba 305-8564, Japan
¹Department of Experimental Physics, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

(Received October 17, 2003; Accepted November 21, 2003)

The possibility of adaptive optics as a spatial coherence modifier is discussed. The initial field to be corrected is produced in such a way that a quasi-monochromatic plane wave of light is incident on a moving diffuser plate, so that it is spatially partially coherent. It is shown that adaptive optics serves to enhance the spatial coherence of the resultant field and that the magnitude of the enhancement depends on the spatial coherence of the initial field to be corrected. The results are illustrated by numerical examples based on an idealized low-order adaptive optics system.

Key words: adaptive optics, spatial coherence, Zernike modes, low-order adaptive optics, partial wave-front correction