Optical eigenmode imaging

TL;DR

This paper introduces an indirect optical imaging technique that captures amplitude and phase information using eigenmode decomposition, enabling efficient, a priori free full-field imaging with potential advantages over second-order correlation methods.

Contribution

The novel contribution is an eigenmode-based imaging method that does not require prior system knowledge and achieves high efficiency through compressive sampling.

Findings

Eigenmode imaging captures both amplitude and phase.

Method does not need prior knowledge of the system.

High image extraction efficiency achieved.

Abstract

We present an indirect imaging method that measures both amplitude and phase information from a transmissive target. Our method is based on an optical eigenmode decomposition of the light intensity and the first-order cross correlation between a target field and these eigenmodes. We demonstrate that such optical eigenmode imaging does not need any a priori knowledge of the imaging system and corresponds to a compressive full-field sampling leading to high image extraction efficiencies. Finally, we discuss the implications with respect to second-order correlation imaging.