Heterodyne detection using hexagonal detector: effects of beam profiles and phase front misalignment

Optical heterodyne detection is a powerful technique where a weak signal beam is mixed with a relatively strong local oscillator beam. This detection scheme employs photon detection process where signal current is proportional to the square of the electric field. The most important issue is the heterodyne mixing efficiency and the signal-to-noise (SNR). These decrease due to the loss of coherence between the signal and the local oscillator (LO) wavefronts for a large detector arrays. Our present work investigates the effects of different beam profiles and tilt between the LO and the signal beam on the same area square and hexagonal detector array in heterodyne detection