Complete characterization of supercontinuum coherence properties

The authors have studied the coherence properties of supercontinuum coherence (SC) by applying standard two-time and two-frequency correlations of second-order coherence theory. This approach has the advantage that it allows to define measures of both coherence time and coherence bandwidth, as well as an effective degree of coherence for SC pulses. Major results suggest that SC can be separated into distinct quasi-coherent and quasi-stationary contributions which should allow for decomposing SC pulses into elementary fields and thus predicting SC behavior in various optical systems. Preliminary experimental results confirm these results.