Photoelectric Mixing of Incoherent Light

Abstract

Beats have been obtained between incoherent light sources by mixing Zeeman components of a visible spectral line at a photosurface. Periodicity in emission was observed through the excitation of a 3-cm cavity. Because of incoherence between the spectral lines and incoherence between the beats from different photocathode areas, the signal-to-shot-noise ratio at the cavity is only 3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}${10}^{\ensuremath{-}5}$ but the beats were modulated optically, while maintaining constant total intensity and our receiver was able to yield a signal-to-noise ratio of two at the indicator. The basic idea is that, in the photoelectric process, the emission probability for electrons is proportional to the square of the resultant electric field amplitude, implying an interference between light originating in independent sources. This is a point of view which does not appear to be tested in any other experiment involving quantum effects. The experiment also demonstrates that any time delay between photon absorption and electron release must be significantly less than ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}10}$ second.