A new approach to measure the second order correlation function g(2) and the coherence time was investigated. The g(2) was calculated from the photon pair time interval distribution by direct numerical self-convolution with the high order correction. The accuracy of this method was examined using an optical fiber based Hanbury-Brown-Twiss interferometer with a pseudo-thermal light source. We found that the significance of the high order correction is related to the factor Iˉτc, which is the overlapping of the photon wave packets. A novel technique was also demonstrated to measure the coherence time τc of a light source using the random phase modulation. In comparison with the conventional self-heterodyne detection, this method is more suitable for a weak light source with a long coherence time.
@article{arxiv.1510.05756,
title = {Measuring the second order correlation function and the coherence time using random phase modulation},
author = {Chen-How Huang and Yung-Hsiang Wen and Yi-Wei Liu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1510.05756},
year = {2016}
}