Liquid crystal tunable filters (LCTF) have been used in systems developed for Raman Chemical Imaging spectroscopy of
chemical, biological and explosives threat materials. However, an ongoing challenge in detecting trace levels of
materials is the limited throughput provided by previous generation LCTFs. In this article, we describe a new class of
birefringent LCTFs based on a Multi-Conjugate Filter design that provides high throughput over an extended wavelength
range (440 nm-750 nm). The spectral resolution, tuning accuracy, out-of-band rejection efficiency have been evaluated
and are demonstrated on a Raman chemical imaging microscope platform. Detection of trace threat particulate matter in
the presence of complex background with improved overall detection performance is demonstrated.
Gruneisen has shown that small, light weight, liquid crystal based devices can correct for the optical distortion caused by an imperfect primary mirror in a telescope and has discussed the efficiency of this correction. In this paper we expand on that work and propose a semi- analytical approach for quantifying the efficiency of a liquid crystal based wavefront corrector for this application.
Fresnel and Fourier holograms recorded by CCD/CMOS cameras can be numerically or optoelectronically reconstructed in order to provide visualization of 3D objects or to enable further manipulation of their phases and amplitudes. In the paper we propose to introduce into digital holographic (DH) setup Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCOS) spatial light modulator as an active 2D optoelectronic element which facilitates performing a variety of operations at the recording and reconstruction stages. This includes introducing phase shifting digital holography, additional phase manipulation for object contouring and displacement measurements as well as for optoelectronic reconstruction of all types of digital holograms. The results of initial experiments performed with LCOS are presented and discussed. Also the future directions of development of active DH and DHI system are outlined.
2-D optical phased array antennas formed by a liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) spatial light modulator are described for free-space laser communication and high-resolution wavefront control. The device consists of an 2-D array of 1024×768 phase modulator elements, each with controlled voltage, and can induce a phase shift from 0 to 2 for wavelengths up to the near IR. When the device is used as a wavefront corrector, 18.7 waves peak-valley (at 632.8 nm) of aberration in the optical system is corrected to a residual of 1/9 wave peak-valley, or 1/30 wave rms. The Strehl ratio improved from 0.006 to 0.83 after correction. An additional linear phase ramp was added to the correction phase ramp to simultaneously correct and steer the laser beam. Continuous steering over ±4 mrad in the X-Y plane with a steering accuracy higher than 10 µrad has been obtained. The 1-D beam-steering efficiency is 80% at the maximum steering angle of 4 mrad. These results suggest that an LCOS device can be used to achieve very high-resolution wavefront control at very high efficiency.
The effect of fringing electric fields in a liquid crystal (LC) Optical Phased Array (OPA), also referred to as a spatial light modulator (SLM), is a governing factor that determines the diffraction efficiency (DE) of the LC OPA for high resolution spatial phase modulation. In this article, the fringing field effect in a high resolution LC OPA is studied by accurate modeling the DE of the LC blazed gratings by LC director simulation and Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) simulation. Influence factors that contribute significantly to the DE are discussed. Such results provide fundamental understanding for high resolution LC devices.
2-D Optical Phased Array (OPA) antenna based on a Liquid Crystal On Silicon (LCoS) device can be considered for use in free space optical communication as an active beam controlling device. Several examples of the functionality of the device include: beam steering in horizontal and elevation direction; high resolution wavefront compensation in large telescope; beam shaping with computer generated kinoform. Various issues related to the diffraction efficiency, steering range, steering accuracy as well as magnitude of wavefront compensation is discussed.
Increasing technological capabilities to produce active microelements (incl. microbeams, micromembranes and micromirrors) and their expanding areas of application introduce unprecedented requirements concerning their design and testing. Conventional two beam interferometry is one of the most popular testing method of microelements that have reflecting surface. Sometimes elements under test have complicated shape or shape gradients which restricts their testing by means of interferometer with flat reference mirror. In this paper we propose to use Liquid Crystal On Silicon (LCOS) spatial light modulator which serves as an adaptive reference mirror and phase shifter in Twyman-Green interferometer applied for microelements measurement. Initial tests have been performed and results confirming applicability of LCOS in active interferometer system are presented.
KEYWORDS: Holograms, Digital holography, Liquid crystal on silicon, Optoelectronics, Diffraction, Holography, 3D image reconstruction, Liquid crystals, Digital recording, Charge-coupled devices
One of the ways to achieve 3D objects visualization is holography. The recent progress of CCD/CMOS cameras provides quick development of digital holographic recording. Optoelectronic reconstruction of digital holograms can be realized by means of variety of spatial light modulators, however each of them suffers several limitations due to big pixel size, low diffraction efficiency and noise. In the paper high efficiency liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) spatial light modulator is proposed as the novel solution for optoelectronic holographic reconstruction. The system for holograms reconstruction based on LCOS is presented. The results of initial experiments on reconstruction of computer generated and digital holograms of different classes of 2D and 3D objects are shown and discussed. The problems connected with limited resolution of the recording (CCD) and reconstruction (LCOS) devices are considered. The comparison of the results obtained by numerical and optoelectronic reconstruction of digital holograms is presented, together with a discussion of the limitations and further possibilities of these techniques.
In order to enhance the speed of image processing we apply the optical wavelet transform to vision system by the method of photoelectric hybrid implementation. The state-of-the-art liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) technology is applied to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the wavelet transform. A fan out grating implemented by a phase-only LCoS is used to implement multiple channel optical processing. Therefore the parallelism of the vision system is improved further. The research results shows that the optical wavelet transform based vision system is reasonable and feasible. The image feature extraction by optical information processing can enhance the speed of vision processing.
A polymer wall confined transmissive switchable liquid crystal grating is proposed and investigated by two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) optical calculation and liquid crystal director calculation for the first time. The results show how to get optimized conditions for high diffraction efficiency by adjusting liquid crystal parameters, grating geometric structure and applied voltage. The light propagation direction and efficiency can be accurately calculated as well as visualized at the same time.
A spatial light modulator, which is capable of high-resolution wavefront compensation and high accuracy beam steering, has been demonstrated using a Liquid Crystal On Silicon (LCOS) microdisplay with 1024×768 XGA resolution. When the device is used as a wavefront corrector, about 18.7 waves (peak-to-valley at 632.8nm) of aberration in the optical system is corrected to a residual of 1/9 wave (peak to valley) or 1/30 wave rms. Measurement of the far field beam profile confirmed the strehl ratio improved from 0.006 with the wavefront correction off, to a strehl ratio of 0.83 after correction. An additional linear phase ramp was added to the correction phase ramp to simultaneously correct and steer the laser beam. We demonstrated we can steer the beam continuously in the range of ±4 mrad in X-Y plane, with a steering accuracy better than 10μrad, or about 1/10 the diffraction limited beam divergence. The quality of the steered beam remains very high during the steering as the ellipticity of beam is smaller than 1±0.04, focused beam waist is 1.3x the diffraction limited beam waist and strehl ratio remains higher than 0.66. The 1-D beam steering efficiency is 80% at the maximum steering angle of 4 mrad, which agrees very well with our Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) simulation result of diffraction efficiency 86% at maximum steering angle. These results suggest that an LCOS device can be used to achieve very high-resolution wavefront control at very high efficiency.
KEYWORDS: CCD cameras, Imaging systems, Cameras, Image processing, Computing systems, Video, Digital image processing, Digital imaging, Large screens, Iron
In the steel-plates' shearing course of steel and iron plants, the industrial dimensions such as the length and width of the steel-plates must be measured on-line with the control of computer and the shearing position is guided precisely and dynamically. The paper presents the method of measuring the geometrical dimensions with face lattice CCD cameras, then taking measuring and shearing of steel plates as an example. The composition and scheme of the measuring system of steel plates are given in detail.
This paper explores the theory and algorithm for the measurement and reconstruction of line industrial objects based on CAD representation, and proposes a mathematical model for line photogrammetry. In the model, the geometric elements based on CAD representation describing industrial objects are considered as unknowns and match directly from image to object. Furthermore, this paper presents an application prototype which includes the system configuration and the method of system calibration. Finally, the measurement results and a discussion are put afterwards.
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