Abstract
The need for lightweight, miniature imaging systems is becoming increasingly prevalent in light of the development of wearable electronics, IoT devices, and drones. Computational imaging enables new types of imaging systems that replace standard optical components like lenses with cleverly designed computational processes. Traditionally, many of these types of systems use conventional complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) or charge coupled device (CCD) sensors for data collection. While this allows for rapid development of large-scale systems, the lack of system-sensor co-design limits the compactness and performance. Here we propose integrated photonics as a candidate platform for the implementation of such co-integrated systems. Using grating couplers and co-designed computational processing in lieu of a lens, we demonstrate the use of silicon photonics as a viable platform for computational imaging with a prototype lensless imaging device. The proof-of-concept device has 20 sensors and a 45-degree field of view, and its optics and sensors are contained within a 2,000 μm × 200 μm × 20 μm volume.
Highlights
Lightweight miniature imaging systems are becoming essential to the development of wearable electronics, IoT devices, and drones[1,2,3]
Using micrograting couplers co-designed with computational processing, we demonstrate that silicon photonics is a viable platform for computational imaging using a prototype lensless imaging device
We develop an imaging technique that utilizes an engineered set of grating couplers in integrated photonics to capture images without the need for a lens or active beam-steering. We demonstrate this technique with a 1-dimensional imager that occupies only 2000 × 200 × 20 μm[3] and can capture 20 data points a 45-degree field of view
Summary
Lightweight miniature imaging systems are becoming essential to the development of wearable electronics, IoT devices, and drones[1,2,3]. We present an imaging system based on a custom-designed array of unique diffraction gratings (acting as optical receivers) co-designed with an adaptive reconstruction algorithm and implemented on an integrated photonics platform. This approach enables imaging within a very small volume, without the need for the depth typically required for most imaging systems. The built-in directionality of the custom integrated photonics microgratings can serve as a means of enhancing the computational image-recovery performance These diffraction gratings can be engineered to have sensitivity in nearly arbitrary patterns and to admit a large span of wavelengths[11,12], and as we show, can respond to incoherent light as well as coherent light. Using micrograting couplers co-designed with computational processing, we demonstrate that silicon photonics is a viable platform for computational imaging using a prototype lensless imaging device
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