OBSERVATION OF INDUCED MODULATION INSTABILITY OF AN INCOHERENT OPTICAL BEAM

摘要

We observe induced modulation instability (MI) of a partially spatially incoherent beam by seeding noise through cross-phase-modulation. Experiments revealed the existence of a threshold for such induced incoherent MI, which depends on the degree of spatial coherence as well as the strength of the nonlinearity. Above the threshold, the MI leads to formation of ordered and disordered patterns of incoherent light.