Single shot polarization resolved coded aperture imaging

Abstract

Coded aperture imaging (CAI) is a well-established indirect imaging technique consisting of two steps, namely optical recording and computational reconstruction. In the recent years, CAI technique has been extended to image along 3D space and also the spectrum with a single camera shot. In this study, we developed CAI for 3D imaging along 2D space and polarization using dual orthogonal polarization phase-modulation (DOPP) technique. DOPP-CAI has been demonstrated for 3D imaging with only one birefringent optical modulator and without any polarization sensitive image sensors. The theory, simulation and proof-of-concept experimental results are presented. The results demonstrate a one-to-one unique intensity-polarization mapping owing to a significant polarization discriminated blur in CAI. We believe that the developed DOPP-CAI can benefit multimodal imaging, birefringent imaging, holography and microscopy.