Spectral analysis of optical mixing measurements

A general rigorous theory of optical heterodyne and homodyne measurements is presented. The power spectrum of the photocurrent resulting from two uncorrelated optical beams mixing on a photodetector is derived. In particular, a rigorous analysis is presented for the delayed self-homodyne method which is used to characterize laser source linewidth by a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with a delay exceeding the source coherence length. Existing treatments are generalized to address non-Lorentzian laser sources of arbitrary lineshape. The analysis is further generalized to cover the case of modulated nonstationary sources. An example of the application of this theory is given. It is shown how the theory may be used to interpret an experimental result obtained using the gated delayed self-homodyne technique for characterizing the frequency chirp of laser sources under modulation