From phase-sensitive coherence to super-bunching second-order interference

Here conjugate symmetry of Fourier transform is applied to the production of a novel phase-sensitive symmetric pseudo-thermal light source by manipulating the spatial phase structure of an incident light field, characterized by the same amplitude but reversed-phase at spatially symmetric locations． Such chaotic light still reflects the bunching effect of thermal light (with a peak correlation coefficient of 2), and produces an anomalously spatial super-bunching effect in second-order interference experiments, along with a theoretical peak of 3． Compared with other light sources, such as pseudo-thermal light, it is experimentally verified that the phase-sensitive symmetric thermal light can break through the upper limit of visibility of second-order interference fringes from 1/3 to 1/2 of the original one． This work therefore reveals an inner connection between phase-sensitive coherence and super-bunching correlation, which can be utilized to boost the visibility of various correlation-enabled applications． This work provides a new approach to generate super-bunching pseudo-thermal light．