Trends in Optics in Information Processing - Interview with Frontiers in Optics Subcommittee Member

by Daniel Marks, Duke University

The FiO/LS marketing team sat down with Daniel Marks, Frontiers in Optics 2013 Subcommittee Member to discuss what type of exciting research can be anticipated this year under FiO 4 - Optics in Information Processing. Ghost imaging, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Microscopy, and Pump-Probe Nonlinear Dispersion Phase Dispersion Spectroscopy are just a few of the trending topics discussed.

What was the trend for paper submissions within your category? Why do you think that is?

Paper submissions are trending further towards blurring the line between optical image and digital computation, to the point where few experimental papers are submitted without a computational imaging component.

On what topic did you see most of your committee’s paper submissions? Why do you think that topic/those topics was/were particularly emphasized in paper submissions?

Papers that explore the properties of light beams with orbital angular momentum continue to increase, including the use of these beams for communication through turbulence, data storage, encoding many degrees of freedom onto entangled photons, and the creation of partially coherent beams with orbital angular momentum.

What topics in your field do you expect most attendees to be focused on? Why?

Novel imaging techniques continues to be a main topic of interest year after year. This year's FiO 4 session includes great deal of submissions in this area, including ghost imaging, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Microscopy, Pump-Probe Nonlinear Dispersion Phase Dispersion Spectroscopy, the Spectral Imaging of quantum well structures Adaptive Scanning for Synthetic Aperture Millimeter-Wave Imaging, and Low Coherence Digital Holography. The techniques of the imaging methods often have cross-disciplinary applications, and so are frequently of broad interest.

What particular paper or speaker really stood out to you in your review of submissions?

Two interesting papers from the University of Glasgow that have different approaches on ghost imaging are interesting to note. One paper, "3-Dimensional Computational Ghost Imaging," uses correlations between structured light patterns, while the other "Heralded single-photon ghost imaging utilising EPR correlations" uses the detection coincidences of entangled photons. Both of these papers provide a good overview to the area as well as show two very different approaches to the problem that complement each other well.

How do the invited talks for your committee reflect the trends in the field?

One new area this year is FiO 4.1 "Optical System Design for Information Optics." This area explores how optical systems are engineered for computational imaging techniques that have different requirements than the conventional metrics. Optical systems are gathering data for algorithmic processing rather than direction consumption by a human viewer. This year the invited talks include speakers that discuss issues and projects that involved designing for systems that require computational image synthesis.

Posted: 8 Jul 2013 by Daniel Marks, Duke University