Détermination de la Surface de Cohérence à Partir d'une Expérience de Photocomptage
The theoretical distribution, with exact second moment, of the number of photoelectrons emitted by an extended photodetector illuminated with partially coherent light is first derived. Then the parameter N, the number of degrees of freedom, is obtained from the second moment of the distribution, for [Formula: see text] (T is the detection time and Tc the coherence time). N is then plotted as a function of the surface of the detector expressed in three different ways for both circular source and detector and square source and detector. In both cases the source is considered to be of uniform brightness. An elementary surface called the surface of coherence is determined by extrapolating towards small values the asymptotical behavior of N for large values of the detection surface. For both sources, this surface of coherence is equal to [Formula: see text]. λ0 is the mean wavelength, D the distance between the source and the detector, and Ss the surface of the source.