Opt. Expr. 19, 26416 (2011)

Photon correlation spectroscopy with incoherent light

Domenico Salerno, Doriano Brogioli, Fabrizio Croccolo, Roberto Ziano and Francesco Mantegazza

Photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS) is based on measuring the temporal correlation of the light intensity scattered by the investigated sample. A typical setup requires a temporally coherent light source. Here, we show that a short-coherence light source can be used as well, provided that its coherence properties are suitably modified. This results in a “skewed-coherence” light beam allowing that restores the coherence requirements. This approach overcomes the usual need for beam filtering, which would reduce the total brightness of the beam.