Compressive Wavefront Sensing with Weak Values

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel wavefront sensing method using compressive sensing and weak measurements, enabling high-resolution imaging with fewer measurements and high sensitivity, suitable for low-light conditions.

Contribution

The work presents a compressive wavefront sensor utilizing weak values and a single-pixel camera, achieving efficient high-resolution wavefront reconstruction with minimal measurements.

Findings

Successfully reconstructs 256x256 wavefront images from 10,000 projections.

Achieves sub-picowatt sensitivity with photon-counting detectors.

Demonstrates high-quality wavefront imaging using compressive sensing techniques.

Abstract

We demonstrate a wavefront sensor based on the compressive sensing, single-pixel camera. Using a high-resolution spatial light modulator (SLM) as a variable waveplate, we weakly couple an optical field's transverse-position and polarization degrees of freedom. By placing random, binary patterns on the SLM, polarization serves as a meter for directly measuring random projections of the real and imaginary components of the wavefront. Compressive sensing techniques can then recover the wavefront. We acquire high quality, 256x256 pixel images of the wavefront from only 10,000 projections. Photon-counting detectors give sub-picowatt sensitivity.