Optical fibre excitation by partially coherent sources

Sources for optical fibre excitation have previously been assumed to be either totally coherent or incoherent. This paper formulates the modal excitation problem for partially coherent sources. The modal excitation coefficients are given in terms of the source complex degree of coherence and numerical results and simple analytical expressions appropriate to multimode step index fibres are presented. The assumption of equal modal power when excitation is by a very incoherent source is examined and the following simple criterion developed: for highly incoherent sources, modes with eigenvaluesU < the reciprocal of the coherence length, measured in units of fibre radius, are approximately equally excited, while the remaining modes carry little power.