Yuzhao MA^1,2

¹Tianjin Key Laboratory for Advanced Signal Processing, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin 300300, P. R. China ²College of Electronic Information Engineering, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin 300300, P. R. China

(Received February 1, 2012; Accepted April 6, 2012)

In the present work the propagation of a partially coherent radially polarized beam through aligned and misaligned ABCD optical systems is discussed. The elements of the beam coherence-polarization matrix for a partially coherent radially polarized beam propagating through these systems are derived for the first time. Using the derived analytical results the intensity distribution of the focused partially coherent radially polarized beam after a low-NA lens is investigated. It is shown that the coherence of the light source affects the beam intensity profile at the focal plane significantly, while for the given coherence of the light source the focal length of the used lens does not affect the beam intensity profile at the focal plane. This is consistent with the case of a partially coherent Hermite-Gaussian beam, as expected.

Key words: beam propagation, radially polarized, partial coherence, optical system