Symmetric Talbot bands experiment

By impinging a step phase-shifted white light beam on a grating-based interferometer, one of diffraction orders is modulated and interference bands so-called “Talbot bands” are formed. Here, classical Talbot bands set up is generalized to the symmetry configuration, in which two glass plates of the same thickness instead of one plate, are inserted halfway into the grating interferometer aperture. Formation of Talbot bands were studied theoretically and experimentally. Frequency impulse response of the new Talbot bands setup was, also presented. It was demonstrated that symmetric set-up causes modulation of both of two opposite orders, according to the theory. In this manner, their visibility is the same. As a result, this similarity of the visibility is reduced while the symmetric arrangement of the glass plates with respect to the optical axis, is broken.