Cubic sinusoidal phase mask: Another choice to extend the depth of field of incoherent imaging system

Wave-front coding is a well known technique used to extend the depth of field of incoherent imaging system. The core of this technique lies in the design of suitable phase masks, among which the most important one is the cubic phase mask suggested by Dowski and Cathey (1995) [1]. In this paper, we propose a new type called cubic sinusoidal phase mask which is generated by combing the cubic one and another component having the sinusoidal form. Numerical evaluations and real experimental results demonstrate that the composite phase mask is superior to the original cubic phase mask with parameters optimized and provides another choice to achieve the goal of depth extension.     

Analytical and experimental demonstration of depth of field extension for incoherent imaging system with a standard sinusoidal phase mask

The wavefront coding technique is used to enlarge the depth of field（DOF）of incoherent imaging systems. The key to wavefront coding lies in the design of suitable phase masks.To date,numerous kinds of phase masks are proposed.However,further understanding is needed regarding phase mask with its phase function being in a standard sinusoidal form.Therefore,the characteristics of such a phase mask are studied in this letter.Deriving the defocused optical transfer function（OTF）analytically proves that the standard sinusoidal phase mask is effective in extending the DOF,and actual experiments confirm the numerical results.At the same time,with the Fisher information as a criterion,the standard sinusoidal phase mask shows a higher tolerance to focus errors（especially severe focus errors）than the classical cubic phase mask.     

Optimized annular phase masks to extend depth of field

A radially symmetric phase mask composed of several annular zones with equal area (called APM) was designed based on the incoherent imaging theory from Fourier Optics. The phase of any ring equals minus of the phase function caused by certain defocus. Another circularly symmetric phase mask similar to the APM (called MQPM) was proposed, except for the different phase function deriving from the quartic phase mask (QPM). For MQPM, there are two differences from an existing phase mask: the selection of the phase parameters and the method to divide the phase mask. An optimization model was developed to obtain optimized parameters of the phase masks. Numerical evaluations show that both APM and MQPM are less insensitive to defocus than QPM, and the defocused optical transfer functions with two phase masks are symmetric about the in-focus plane in the axial direction.     

Optimized free-form phase mask for extension of depth of field in wavefront-coded imaging

To achieve a further extension of the depth of field in wavefront-coded imaging by reducing the impact of focus error in the optical transfer function, we propose the use of a free-form phase mask (FPM) instead of a conventional cubic phase mask (CPM). We optimized the shape of the FPM using the simulated annealing algorithm and confirmed that the optimized FPM provides a much larger focal tolerance and better final images than the CPM in the noise-free case.     

Pupil design based on Fisher information optimization to extend field depth in practical optical system

<正>Wavefront coding(WFC) is used to extend the field depth of an incoherent optical system by employing a phase mask on the pupil.We uses a Fisher information(FI) metric based optimization method to design a phase mask by taking the modulation transfer function(MTF) of the practical optical system into consideration. This method can modulate the wavefront so that the point spread function and optical transfer function are insensitive to the object distance.The simulation results show that the optimized phase mask based on the proposed method can further improve the defocusing image quality while maintaining the focusing image quality.     

On the relation between the wave aberration function and the phase transfer function for an incoherent imaging system with circular pupil

The consideration is carried out in its general formulation: the wave aberration function is represented in terms of classical aberrations (the Zernike polynomials), the phase transfer function (argument of the complex optical transfer function) is defined by a chain of transformations originating from the generalized pupil function. Quasi-analytical quadrature formulas are derived that link the optical transfer function and the phase transfer function with the aberration terms. It is shown that the phase transfer function contains information on the odd-order aberrations, which can be retrieved from coefficients to the Taylor expansion of the derived quadrature relation. Received 16 June 2001     

Effects of relative phase in an open ladder system without incoherent pumping

We studied effects of the relative phase between the probe and driving fields on the absorption and dispersion properties in an open three-level ladder system with spontaneously generated coherence but without incoherent pumping. It is shown that by the phase controlling, switching from absorption to lasing without inversion (LWI) and enhancing remarkablely LWI gain can be realized; large index of refraction with zero absorption and the electromagnetically induced transparency can be obtained. We also find that varying the atomic injection and exit rates has a considerable influence on the phase dependent-absorption property of the probe field, existent of the atomic injection and exit rates gives the necessary condition of the realization of LWI, getting LWI is impossible in the corresponding closed system without incoherent pumping.     

Analyzing wavelength behavior of a cubic phase mask imaging system based on modulation transfer function

The wavefront coding technology is an effectively method for extending the depth of field. However, the phase delayed by the phase mask changes with light wavelength, and the chromatic aberration is caused by chromatic dispersion of the optical elements. The modulation transfer function (MTF) of the cubic phase mask (CPM) system is derived with considering the axial chromatic aberration and optical path difference variation with wavelength, and the wavelength behavior of CPM system is analyzed in details. We yield that the MTF is approximately wavelength invariant within a certain frequency bandwidth, and the bandwidth is nearly inverse proportional to wavelength and varies with axial chromatic aberration. The effect induced by dispersion of the CPM material is very weak. If the CPM system is illuminated by wideband spectral light and the ACA exists, then the frequency bandwidth may become narrower than the monochromatic case, and the position of image sensor can be relocated to balance frequency bandwidth among all wavelengths.     

对数位相编码系统多色光成像特性研究

位相编码技术是在非相干光学系统的出瞳处加入位相板,使得图像传感器上得到的图像对景深不敏感,通过对图像进行解码而获得清晰图像,实现扩大光学系统景深.文章针对对数位相板编码系统,分析了系统与波长相关的两个因素:位相板的位相调制量和系统色差,通过对比在不同离焦量和色差情况下两种波长的点扩散函数(point spread fu...     

Optimized phase pupil masks for extended depth of field

By properly designing a phase pupil mask to modulate or encode the optical images and then digitally restoring them, one can greatly extend the depth of field and improve image quality. The original works done by Dowski and Cathey introduce the use of a cubic phase pupil mask to extend the depth of field. The theoretical and experimental researches all verified its effectiveness. In this paper, we suggest the use of an exponential phase pupil mask to extend the depth of field. This phase mask has two variable parameters for designing to control the shape of the mask so as to modulate the wave-front more flexible. We employ an optimization procedure based on the Fisher information metric to obtain the optimum values of the parameters for the exponential and the cubic masks, respectively. A series of performance comparisons between these two optimized phase masks in extending the depth of field are then done. The results show that the exponential phase mask provide slight advantage to the cubic one in several aspects.