Timeline for Does a photon interfere only with itself?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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| Apr 21, 2022 at 12:56 | comment | added | R.W. Bird | To produce a hologram, a laser beam is split. A small part is spread by a lens and goes directly to the hologram. The rest is spread and illuminates a scene. The photons which reflect from the scene and arrive at the hologram interfere with with the direct beam to produce an interference pattern which is recorded on film. To my knowledge, this does not work unless all of the photons leave the light source in phase. | |
| Apr 21, 2022 at 1:58 | comment | added | PhysicsDave | One could say each photon is taking its own path thru the medium, the medium just offers many structured paths that generate many images the you observe based on your position. Peter Shor above said interference is occurring in a laser as evidenced by coherence .... but the laser action is photon --> electron --> stimulated photon .... i.e. the photons never interact (or interfere) with each other. | |
| Apr 20, 2022 at 14:58 | history | answered | R.W. Bird | CC BY-SA 4.0 |