We report analytic formulas for the elements of the 2×2 cross-spectral density matrix of a stochastic electromagnetic anisotropic beam propagating through the turbulent atmosphere with the help of vector integration. From these formulas the changes in the spectral density (spectrum), in the spectral degree of polarization, and in the spectral degree of coherence of such a beam on propagation are determined. As an example, these quantities are calculated for a so-called anisotropic electromagnetic Gaussian Schell-model beam propagating in the isotropic and homogeneous atmosphere. In particular, it is shown numerically that for a beam of this class, unlike for an isotropic electromagnetic Gaussian Schell-model beam, its spectral degree of polarization does not return to its value in the source plane after propagating at sufficiently large distances in the atmosphere. It is also shown that the spectral degree of coherence of such a beam tends to zero with increasing distance of propagation through the turbulent atmosphere, in agreement with results previously reported for isotropic beams.

Analytical formulas for the elements of the 2×2 cross-spectral density matrix of a kind of stochastic electromagnetic array beam propagating through the turbulent atmosphere are derived with the help of vector integration. Two types of superposition (i.e. the correlated superposition and the uncorrelated superposition) are considered. The changes in the spectral density and in the spectral degree of polarization of such an array beam generated by isotropic or anisotropic electromagnetic Gaussian Schell-model sources on propagation are determined by the use of the analytical formulas. It is shown by numerical calculations that for the array beam composed by isotropic Gaussian-Schell model sources, the spectral degree of polarization in the sufficiently far field returns to the value of the array source; for the array beam composed by anisotropic sources, the spectral degree of polarization in the far field approaches a fixed value that is different from the source.

The earlier proposed interference-based encryption method with two phase-only masks (POMs), which actually is a special case of our method, is quite simple and does not need iterative encoding. However, it has been found recently that the encryption method has security problems and cannot be directly applied to image encryption due to the inherent silhouette problem. Several methods based on chaotic encryption algorithms have been proposed to remove the problem by postprocessing of the POMs, which increased the computation time or led to digital inverse computation in decryption. Here we propose a new method for image encryption based on optical interference and analytical algorithm that can be directly used for image encryption. The information of the target image is hidden into three POMs, and the silhouette problem that exists in the method with two POMs can be resolved during the generation procedure of POMs based on the interference principle. Simulation results are presented to verify the validity of the proposed approach.

The general analytical formula for the propagation of the power-exponent-phase vortex (PEPV) beam through a paraxial ABCD optical system is derived. On that basis the evolution of the intensity distribution of such a beam in free space and the focusing system is investigated. In addition, some experiments are carried out, which verify the theoretical predictions. Both of the theoretical and experimental results show that the beam’s profile can be modulated by the topological charge and the power order of the PEPV beam.