Imaging using volume holograms

Volume holograms can be thought of as self-aligned 3D stacks of diffractive elements that operate coherently on incident fields as they propagate through the structure. In this thesis, we propose, design and implement imaging systems that incorporate a volume hologram as one of the elements that operate on the optical field incident on the imaging system. We show that a volume hologram acts like a "smart" lens that can perform several useful functions in an imaging system and demonstrate the same experimentally. To this end, we first develop the theory of volume holographic imaging and calculate the imaging properties of the field diffracted by a volume hologram for the special cases of coherent and incoherent monochromatic illumination. We concentrate on two simple imaging system configurations, viz. volume holograms recorded using a planar signal and either a spherical or a planar reference beam. We pay particular attention to the depth resolution of each system and discuss how appropriately designed objective optics placed before the volume hologram can enhance the depth resolution. We also derive the imaging properties of the volume holographic "smart" lens under conditions of incoherent broadband illumination. We show that multiple volume holographic sensors can be configured to acquire different perspectives of an object with enhanced resolution. We experimentally verify the developed theories and implement several volume holographic imaging systems for a wide range of imaging applications. We compare volume holographic imaging with some commonly used 3D imaging systems and discuss the merits of each system. We find that volume holograms with low diffraction efficiencies result in lower photon counts

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Sinha, Arnab, 1978-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• George Barbastathis.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/27104

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/27104