Control of the optical field coherence by spatiotemporal light modulation.

The novel spatiotemporal optical coherence manipulation technique, which allows one to tailor the second-order coherence properties of a light beam, is introduced. With the use of an interferometric setup we show that the basic measure of the contrast of interference fringes, i.e., Michelson's visibility, can be controlled across the interference pattern by modulating the phase of the spectral degree of coherence.