A partially coherent beam under the combined action of a Hermite-Gaussian correlated function and vortex phase, named the HGCSMLG_0l beam has been explored both theoretically and experimentally. The statistical properties, such as the intensity and distribution of the degree of coherence (DOC) on propagation are analyzed in detail, based on the deduced equations. We find that the intensity is determined dominantly by the non-conventional correlated function when the coherence length is comparatively small and by vortex phase when the coherence length is large. The modulus of the DOC is not vulnerable to coherence width, rather, it is affected by both non-conventional correlated function and vortex phase. Our results are verified well by the experiment results.

An adjustable optical cage generated by focusing a partially coherent beam with nonconventional correlation function named the Bessel–Gaussian correlated Schell-model (BGCSM) beam is investigated in detail. With the help of the generalized Huygens–Fresnel integral and complex Gaussian function expansion, the analytical formula of the BGCSM beam passing through an apertured ABCD optical system was derived. Our numerical results show that the generated optical cage can be moderately adjusted by the aperture radius, the spatial coherence width, and the parameter β of the BGCSM beam. Furthermore, the effect of these parameters on the effective beam size and the spectral degree of coherence were also analyzed. The optical cage with adjustable size can be applied for particle trapping and material thermal processing.

A specially correlated radially polarized (SCRP) beam with unusual physical properties on propagation in the paraxial regime was introduced and generated recently. In this paper, we extend the paraxial propagation of an SCRP beam to the nonparaxial regime. The closed-form 3 × 3 cross-spectral density matrix of a nonparaxial SCRP beam propagating in free space is derived with the aid of the generalized Rayleigh–Sommerfeld diffraction integral. The statistical properties, such as average intensity, degree of polarization, and spectral degree of coherence, are studied comparatively for the nonparaxial SCRP beam and the partially coherent radially polarized (PCRP) beam with a conventional Gaussian–Schell-model correlation function. It is found that the nonparaxial properties of an SCRP beam are strikingly different from those of a PCRP beam. These nonparaxial properties are closely related to the correlation functions and the beam waist width. Our results may find potential applications in beam shaping and optical trapping in nonparaxial systems.