Yn. Ning et al., RELATION BETWEEN THE COHERENCE LENGTH AND MODAL NOISE IN A GRADED-INDEX MULTIMODE FIBER FOR WHITE-LIGHT INTERFEROMETRIC SYSTEMS, Optics letters, 19(6), 1994, pp. 372-374
The results of a comparative experimental study on the effect of modal
noise induced by the modal coupling effect in a graded-index multimod
e fiber that is illuminated by a light source with a tunable coherence
length are reported. It has been shown that, in the coherence-length
region of 30-80 mum, the value of the signal-to-noise ratio in an inte
rferometric system could be reduced by the perturbation-induced modal
noise, and, as the coherence length increases, the more the signal-to-
noise ratio decreases. However, when the value of the coherence length
is in the region of 80 mum and upward, the value of the corresponding
signal-to-noise ratio reduction is seen to vary in only a very small
range (<2 dBV). Under this condition the modal noise induced in the fi
ber cannot be suppressed by the incoherent nature of the light source,
thus showing the practical limitation of the use of multimode fibers
in an interferometric system with a low-coherence light source.