Influence of flatness distortion on the output of a liquid-crystal-television-based joint transform correlator system

Optical inspection of liquid crystal variable retarder inhomogeneities

Liquid crystal variable retarders (LCVRs) are starting to be widely used in optical systems because of their capacity to provide a controlled variable optical retardance between two orthogonal components of incident polarized light or to introduce a known phase shifting (PS) between coherent waves, both by means of an applied voltage. Typically, the retardance or PS introduced by an LCVR is not homogeneous across the aperture. On the one hand, the LCVR glass substrates present a global bend that causes an overall variation of the retardance or PS. On the other hand, in the manufacturing process of an LCVR, there sometimes appears a set of micro-air bubbles that causes local retardance or PS inhomogeneities. In this work, we present an interferometric technique based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer that is insensitive to vibrations and capable of inspecting and characterizing the LCVR's retardance or PS inhomogeneities. The feasibility of the proposed method is demonstrated in the experimental results, where the LCVR retardance is measured with an error of about 0.2 rad. The thickness of possible micro-air bubbles is obtained with a resolution of about 50 nm.

Real-time monitoring of vibration fringe patterns by optical reconstruction of digital holograms: mode beating detection

A new technique capable of monitoring two-dimensional vibration fringe patterns in real-time is presented. It is based on optical reconstructing of time-averaged digital holograms. Recording of the holograms is realized in a quasi-Fourier off-axis setup whilst reconstructing in an extended Fourier transform setup capable of spatial filtering of the hologram reconstructions. The effectiveness of the proposed device, tested on a silicon wafer, was verified by performing operations such as monitoring of vibration modes, adjusting the hologram recording parameters, or searching for resonant frequencies. Additionally, mode beating between two distant vibration frequencies is observed and reported. The proposed technique is suitable for various scientific and industrial applications.

Recognition of cuneiform inscription signs by use of a hybrid-optoelectronic correlator device

A hybrid-optoelectronic correlator device and an algorithm are proposed for recognizing cuneiform inscription signs. The device is based on the extended correlator architecture with three liquid-crystal display(s) (LCD)s and three light detectors: one CCD camera for capturing the input image, oneLCD for displaying the input image, two LCDs for the complex correlation filter (amplitude and phase parts), and two detectors for measuring the total and peak intensities of the output correlation information. The recognition algorithm is designed to allow automatic as well as real-time processing. The recognition results are given for the cuneiform signs impressed on an original clay tablet. The investigated tablet (VAT 12890 of the Pergamon Museum, Berlin, Germany) was found in Bogazköy (Hattusha) and dates from the 14th century B.C. It is a fragment of the Epic of Gilgamesh in the Akkadian language with a large number of the sign samples.