Measurement of Spatial Coherence Through the Shadow of Small Obscurations

We present a simple method to measure the spatial coherence of a partially coherent field by analyzing far-field measurements with and without a well-characterized obscuration. From these measurements, the coherence can be estimated for all pairs of points whose centroid is the obstacle's centroid. By scanning the obstacle over the test plane, one can recover the four-dimensional coherence function. In principle, such measurements can be performed without any refractive or diffractive elements, allowing them to be done in higher frequency regimes.