Imaging with parallel ray-rotation sheets

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that multiple parallel ray-rotation sheets can perform unscaled, unrotated imaging between two planes, with the image appearing rotated when viewed through the sheets, depending on the observer's position.

Contribution

It introduces a novel optical imaging method using parallel ray-rotation sheets that achieve unscaled, unrotated imaging between two planes.

Findings

Imaging occurs only between two specific planes.

The image remains unscaled and unrotated.

Planes outside the imaging region appear rotated when viewed through the sheets.

Abstract

A ray-rotation sheet consists of miniaturized optical components that function - ray optically - as a homogeneous medium that rotates the local direction of transmitted light rays around the sheet normal by an arbitrary angle [A. C. Hamilton et al., arXiv:0809.2646 (2008)]. Here we show that two or more parallel ray-rotation sheets perform imaging between two planes. The image is unscaled and un-rotated. No other planes are imaged. When seen through parallel ray-rotation sheets, planes that are not imaged appear rotated, whereby the rotation angle changes with the ratio between the observer's and the object plane's distance from the sheets.