Holographic Research Articles

Encoding terahertz holographic bits with a computer-generated 3D-printed phase plate

A sub-terahertz holographic image of a two-dimensional 576-bit data code is produced using a diffractive phase-plate element. The phase plate was designed using a modified Gerchberg-Saxton iterative algorithm to encode a focused image of the data code into a phase modulation profile. The complex phase plate structure is fabricated from polylactic acid using fused deposition modeling, a common three-dimensional-printing technique. The design achieves a significantly simplified optical setup, consisting of a 0.14 THz diverging source, the holographic phase plate and a scanning detector, without the need for additional optical elements. The information stored in the data code is an example of a cryptographic private key. Specifically, the private key for a Bitcoin wallet address. Successful retrieval of the encoded information demonstrates a potential use case for terahertz holographic memory, using a storage medium that can be fabricated with consumer-level three-dimensional-printing techniques.

Computational Imaging Encryption with a Steganographic and Holographic Authentication Strategy

AbstractRobust data security is of paramount importance, particularly for highly classified information. To achieve this, advanced encryption and decryption methods, along with stringent access control and physical security measures, are essential to mitigate the risk of unauthorized access and data exposure. Ghost imaging (GI), a computational imaging technique that operates indirectly, offers a distinct approach compared to traditional spatially resolved imaging techniques. By utilizing computational algorithms, GI enables indirect image reconstruction, making it well‐suited for encryption applications. This proposal introduces a new computational imaging encryption scheme that combines Fourier ghost imaging (FGI) and computational holography. The scheme utilizes an untrained‐tree‐network to generate two camouflaged computer‐generated holograms (CGHs). Integration of CGH‐based steganography and holographic authentication enhances the encoding and decoding processes of FGI encryption. The effectiveness and security of the proposed scheme are rigorously validated through numerical simulations and optical experiments. The results demonstrate promising potential for effectively merging direct and indirect imaging methods in security applications.

The collapse of a sonoluminescent cavitation bubble imaged with X-ray free-electron laser pulses

Single bubble sonoluminescence (SBSL) is the phenomenon of synchronous light emission due to the violent collapse of a single spherical bubble in a liquid, driven by an ultrasonic field. During the bubble collapse, matter inside the bubble reaches extreme conditions of several gigapascals and temperatures on the order of 10000 K, leading to picosecond flashes of visible light. To this day, details regarding the energy focusing mechanism rely on simulations due to the fast dynamics of the bubble collapse and spatial scales below the optical resolution limit. In this work we present phase-contrast holographic imaging with single x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) pulses of a SBSL cavitation bubble in water. X-rays probe the electron density structure and by that provide a uniquely new view on the bubble interior and its collapse dynamics. The involved fast time-scales are accessed by sub-100 fs XFEL pulses and a custom synchronization scheme for the bubble oscillator. We find that during the whole oscillation cycle the bubble’s density profile can be well described by a simple step-like structure, with the radius R following the dynamics of the Gilmore model. The quantitatively measured internal density and width of the boundary layer exhibit a large variance. Smallest reconstructed bubble sizes reach down to R≃0.8μm , and are consistent with spherical symmetry. While we here achieved a spatial resolution of a few 100 nm, the visibility of the bubble and its internal structure is limited by the total x-ray phase shift which can be scaled with experimental parameters.

Simulation and Navigation in the Neurosurgical Field Using Three-Dimensional Hholograms by Mixed Reality Devices

Recently, three-dimensional(3D)holograms from mixed-reality(MR)devices have become available in the medical field. 3D holographic images can provide immersive and intuitive information that has been reported to be very useful for preoperative simulations. Compared with conventional 3D images on a two-dimensional(2D)monitor, 3D holograms offer a higher level of realism, allowing observation of the images anytime and anywhere if the MR device is operational. Even during surgery, surgeons can check realistic 3D holograms in front of them, above the surgical field, without having to turn their heads toward a 2D monitor on the wall. 3D holograms can also be used for neuronavigation if the hologram is tracked to the patient's real head. This method can be defined as 3D augmented reality(AR)navigation, which shows a hologram of a target, such as a tumor or aneurysm, inside the head and brain. In the future, interventions using these techniques with 3D holograms from MR devices are expected to evolve and develop new types of treatments for endoscopic surgery or fluoroscopy-guided endovascular surgery.

Liquid lens based holographic camera for real 3D scene hologram acquisition using end-to-end physical model-driven network

With the development of artificial intelligence, neural network provides unique opportunities for holography, such as high fidelity and dynamic calculation. How to obtain real 3D scene and generate high fidelity hologram in real time is an urgent problem. Here, we propose a liquid lens based holographic camera for real 3D scene hologram acquisition using an end-to-end physical model-driven network (EEPMD-Net). As the core component of the liquid camera, the first 10 mm large aperture electrowetting-based liquid lens is proposed by using specially fabricated solution. The design of the liquid camera ensures that the multi-layers of the real 3D scene can be obtained quickly and with great imaging performance. The EEPMD-Net takes the information of real 3D scene as the input, and uses two new structures of encoder and decoder networks to realize low-noise phase generation. By comparing the intensity information between the reconstructed image after depth fusion and the target scene, the composite loss function is constructed for phase optimization, and the high-fidelity training of hologram with true depth of the 3D scene is realized for the first time. The holographic camera achieves the high-fidelity and fast generation of the hologram of the real 3D scene, and the reconstructed experiment proves that the holographic image has the advantage of low noise. The proposed holographic camera is unique and can be used in 3D display, measurement, encryption and other fields.

Recent Advances and Current Trends in Transmission Tomographic Diffraction Microscopy.

Optical microscopy techniques are among the most used methods in biomedical sample characterization. In their more advanced realization, optical microscopes demonstrate resolution down to the nanometric scale. These methods rely on the use of fluorescent sample labeling in order to break the diffraction limit. However, fluorescent molecules' phototoxicity or photobleaching is not always compatible with the investigated samples. To overcome this limitation, quantitative phase imaging techniques have been proposed. Among these, holographic imaging has demonstrated its ability to image living microscopic samples without staining. However, for a 3D assessment of samples, tomographic acquisitions are needed. Tomographic Diffraction Microscopy (TDM) combines holographic acquisitions with tomographic reconstructions. Relying on a 3D synthetic aperture process, TDM allows for 3D quantitative measurements of the complex refractive index of the investigated sample. Since its initial proposition by Emil Wolf in 1969, the concept of TDM has found a lot of applications and has become one of the hot topics in biomedical imaging. This review focuses on recent achievements in TDM development. Current trends and perspectives of the technique are also discussed.

Development of magnesium alloys: Advanced characterization using synchrotron radiation techniques

Magnesium alloys are the lightest metal structural materials owing to their excellent physical and chemical properties. Microstructural evolution in magnesium alloys under the conditions of casting, thermal-mechanical processing, and in-service environment, play an important role in governing their mechanical properties and reliability/sustainability. A synchrotron light source produces high flux, tunable X-ray energy, high resolution, and high coherence X-ray beams, which can realize in-situ dynamic observation of microstructural evolution in a wide range of alloys during the entire processing chain and in simulated service environments. This article reviews the fundamentals of synchrotron radiation characterization techniques (imaging, diffraction, scattering, and fluorescence holography) and state-of-the-art advanced synchrotron characterization techniques on the microstructure evolution mechanism of magnesium alloys. Case studies span a broad range of solidification, deformation, precipitation, fracture and damage, corrosion, and energy storage. Research opportunities and challenges of physical metallurgy studies of magnesium alloys are highlighted for future studies.

Digital Holography and 3D Imaging 2023: introduction to the joint feature issue in Applied Optics and Journal of the Optical Society of America A.

The Optica Topical Meeting on Digital Holography and 3D Imaging (DH) was held 14-17 August 2023 in Boston, Massachusetts. The meeting was organized co-jointly with the Optica Imaging Congress. Feature issues based on the DH meeting series have been released by Applied Optics (AO) since 2007. Since 2017, AO and the Journal of the Optical Society of America A (JOSA A) have presented a feature issue in each journal. This feature issues includes 17 papers in AO and 9 in JOSA A. Together they cover a large range of topics, reflecting the rapidly expanding techniques and applications of digital holography and 3D imaging. The upcoming DH Conference (DH 2024) will be held from 3 to 6 June in Paestum, Italy.

Digital Holography and 3D Imaging: introduction to the joint feature issue in Applied Optics and Journal of the Optical Society of America A.

The Optica Topical Meeting on Digital Holography and 3D Imaging (DH) was held 14-17 August 2023 in Boston, Massachusetts. The meeting was organized co-jointly with the Optica Imaging Congress. Feature issues based on the DH meeting series have been released by Applied Optics (AO) since 2007. Since 2017, AO and the Journal of the Optical Society of America A (JOSA A) have presented a feature issue in each journal. This feature issues includes 17 papers in AO and 9 in JOSA A. Together they cover a large range of topics, reflecting the rapidly expanding techniques and applications of digital holography and 3D imaging. The upcoming DH Conference (DH 2024) will be held from 3 to 6 June in Paestum, Italy.

Spatial resolution enhancement in holographic imaging via angular spectrum expansion

Digital holography numerically restores three-dimensional image information using optically captured diffractive waves. The required bandwidth is larger than that of hologram pixel at a closer distance in the Fresnel diffraction regime, which results in the formation of aliased replica patterns in digital hologram. From the analysis of sampling phenomenon, the replica functions are revealed to be the components of higher angular spectra of hologram. A undersampled hologram consists of the moire patterns formed by the modulation of original function by complex exponential function. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the replicas in both real and Fourier spaces. The acquisition methods of high-resolution images over a wide field view are proposed on the basis of the expansion process of angular spectrum by using replicas. Only the captured hologram with low numerical aperature or low resolution restores a high-resolution image when using an optimization algorithm. Numerical simulations and optical experiments are performed to investigate the proposed scheme.

Segmented Acoustic Displays

For more than a century, segmented displays, such as the seven‐segment display, have been a popular and cost‐effective option. They can display various commonly used characters by controlling a few custom‐shaped binary light emitters. Herein, the acoustic equivalent of segmented displays, which uses heterogeneous sound modulators to generate a limited set of acoustic holographic images, is introduced. Designing segmented acoustic displays is more challenging than optical ones due to the complex relationship between emitted sound and generated holographic images. To address this challenge, a design methodology based on unsupervised learning techniques is proposed. The approach balances the cost of acoustic displays and the quality of the images they generate, resulting in segmented displays that outperform existing general‐purpose ones when generating a finite set of acoustic images. Using simulations and physical fabrication of metamaterial‐based acoustic displays, it is proven that the approach can create segmented acoustic displays that produce high‐quality images at a lower cost. Additionally, the methodology is applied to multifrequency acoustic displays and its scalability is assessed as the number of images increases. The cost reduction through segmentation presented herein is expected to democratize sound manipulators for acoustic displays and other applications like acoustic levitation and noise cancellation.

Quantifying the Dynamics of Bacterial Biofilm Formation on the Surface of Soft Contact Lens Materials Using Digital Holographic Tomography to Advance Biofilm Research.

The increase in bacterial resistance to antibiotics in recent years demands innovative strategies for the detection and combating of biofilms, which are notoriously resilient. Biofilms, particularly those on contact lenses, can lead to biofilm-related infections (e.g., conjunctivitis and keratitis), posing a significant risk to patients. Non-destructive and non-contact sensing techniques are essential in addressing this threat. Digital holographic tomography emerges as a promising solution. This allows for the 3D reconstruction of the refractive index distribution in biological samples, enabling label-free visualization and the quantitative analysis of biofilms. This tool provides insight into the dynamics of biofilm formation and maturation on the surface of transparent materials. Applying digital holographic tomography for biofilm examination has the potential to advance our ability to combat the antibiotic bacterial resistance crisis. A recent study focused on characterizing biofilm formation and maturation on six soft contact lens materials (three silicone hydrogels, three hydrogels), with a particular emphasis on Staphylococcus epidermis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, both common culprits in ocular infections. The results revealed species- and time-dependent variations in the refractive indexes and volumes of biofilms, shedding light on cell dynamics, cell death, and contact lens material-related factors. The use of digital holographic tomography enables the quantitative analysis of biofilm dynamics, providing us with a better understanding and characterization of bacterial biofilms.

General phase-difference imaging of incoherent digital holography.

The hologram formed by incoherent holography based on self-interference should preserve the phase difference information of the object, such as the phase difference between the mutually orthogonal polarizations of anisotropic object. How to decode this phase difference from this incoherent hologram, i.e., phase-difference imaging, is of great significance for studying the properties of the measured object. However, there is no general phase-difference imaging theory due to both diverse incoherent holography systems and the complicated reconstruction process from holograms based on the diffraction theory. To realize phase-difference image in incoherent holography, the relationship between the phase difference of the object and the image reconstructed by holograms is derived using a general physical model of incoherent holographic systems, and then the additional phase that will distort this relationship in actual holographic systems is analyzed and eliminated. Finally, the phase-difference imaging that is suitable for the most incoherent holographic systems is realized and the general theory is experimentally verified. This technology can be applied to phase-difference imaging of anisotropic objects, and has potential applications in materials science, biomedicine, polarized optics and other fields.

Unsupervised Deep Learning Enables 3D Imaging for Single‐Shot Incoherent Holography

AbstractIncoherent digital holography no longer requires spatial coherence of the light field, breaking through the imaging resolution of coherent digital holography. However, traditional reconstruction methods cannot avoid the inherent contradiction between temporal resolution and signal‐to‐noise ratio, which is mitigated by deep learning methods, and there are problems such as dataset labeling and insufficient generalization ability. Here, a self‐calibrating reconstruction approach with an untrained network is proposed by fusing the plug‐and‐play nonlinear reconstruction block, the forward physics imaging model, and a physically enhanced neural network. Measurement consistency and total variation kernel function regularization are used to optimize the network parameters and invert the potential process. The results show that the proposed method can achieve high fidelity, high signal‐to‐noise ratio, dynamic, and artifact‐free 3D reconstruction using a single hologram without the need for datasets or labels. In addition, the peak signal‐to‐noise ratio of the reconstructed image with the proposed method is improved by a factor of 4.6 compared to the previous methods. The proposed method leads to considerable performance improvement on the imaging inverse problem, bringing new enlightenment for high‐precision unsupervised incoherent digital holographic 3D imaging.

Thermally tunable binary-phase VO2 metasurfaces for switchable holography and digital encryption

Abstract Metasurface holography has aroused immense interest in producing holographic images with high quality, higher-order diffraction-free, and large viewing angles by using a planar artificial sheet consisting of subwavelength nanostructures. Despite remarkable progress, dynamically tunable metasurface holography in the visible band has rarely been reported due to limited available tuning methods. In this work, we propose and numerically demonstrate a thermally tunable vanadium dioxide (VO2) nanofin based binary-phase metasurface, which generates holographic information in the visible varying with temperature. The insulator-to-metal phase transition in VO2 nanofins allows two independent binary-phase holograms generated by machine learning to be encoded in the respective phases of VO2 and switched under thermal regulation. By elaborately designing the dimensions and compensated phase of VO2 nanofins, high-quality images are reconstructed at corresponding temperatures under appropriate chiral illumination. In contrast, much poorer images are produced under inappropriate chiral illumination. We further demonstrate the advantage of applying the VO2 phase-compensated metasurface in high-security digital encryption, where two desired character combinations are read out with appropriate excitations and temperatures, whereas one identical fraudulent message is received with inappropriate excitations. Our design approach offers a new and efficient method to realize tunable metasurfaces, which is promisingly adopted in dynamic display, information encryption, optical anti-counterfeiting, etc.

In-situ quantification of dispersity and sphericity of uranyl nitrate sol droplets using holographic imaging

Uniform-sized and highly spherical nuclear fuel microspheres are pivotal components in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors. In the manufacturing process of microspheres through external gelation, monodispersed droplets with high sphericity at the dispersion stage establishes the fundamental basis for the subsequent production of superior-quality microspheres. Addressing the monitoring requirements for droplet size and sphericity in dispersion process, this study develops a measurement apparatus based on digital in-line holography. The apparatus records droplet holograms within distances ranging from 96 mm to 183 mm, achieving imaging resolutions between 64 lp/mm to 32 lp/mm. Droplet measurements are conducted for nine operational conditions encompassing varied excitation frequencies and liquid flow rates. Observation under various dispersion parameters reveals diverse droplet morphologies. Polydisperse conditions manifest an abundance of satellite droplets, agglomerated droplets, coalesced droplets, and deformed droplets. The statistical results indicate that at 100 Hz, monodisperse droplets with high sphericity are produced, exhibiting a standard deviation below 30 μm. Moreover, droplet sizes demonstrate a deviation from theoretical calculations within 2.5%. Additionally, preliminary measurements are conducted during the dispersion process of a six-nozzle head, confirming the accuracy on locating droplets of the holographic system within a depth range of more than 30 mm.

Reusability report: Unpaired deep-learning approaches for holographic image reconstruction

Deep-learning methods using unpaired datasets hold great potential for image reconstruction, especially in biomedical imaging where obtaining paired datasets is often difficult due to practical concerns. A recent study by Lee et al. (Nature Machine Intelligence 2023) has introduced a parameterized physical model (referred to as FMGAN) using the unpaired approach for adaptive holographic imaging, which replaces the forward generator network with a physical model parameterized on the propagation distance of the probing light. FMGAN has demonstrated its capability to reconstruct the complex phase and amplitude of objects, as well as the propagation distance, even in scenarios where the object-to-sensor distance exceeds the range of the training data. We performed additional experiments to comprehensively assess FMGAN’s capabilities and limitations. As in the original paper, we compared FMGAN to two state-of-the-art unpaired methods, CycleGAN and PhaseGAN, and evaluated their robustness and adaptability under diverse conditions. Our findings highlight FMGAN’s reproducibility and generalizability when dealing with both in-distribution and out-of-distribution data, corroborating the results reported by the original authors. We also extended FMGAN with explicit forward models describing the response of specific optical systems, which improved performance when dealing with non-perfect systems. However, we observed that FMGAN encounters difficulties when explicit forward models are unavailable. In such scenarios, PhaseGAN outperformed FMGAN.

Generation of Non-Iterative POHs based on Optimized Hybrid Phase for Fresnel Lensless Holographic Projection

Generation of Non-Iterative POHs based on Optimized Hybrid Phase for Fresnel Lensless Holographic Projection

Transmissive all-dielectric metasurfaces for reconstructing terahertz holographic images via polarization-multiplexing and polarization-decoupling

Recently, the multifunctional terahertz metasurface holography (meta-holography) has garnered significant attention and sparked wide discussions due to its capacity for carrying a large amount of information. However, traditional multifunctional meta-holography, achieved by integrating metasurfaces with active materials or MEMS technology, have exhibited distinct shortcomings due to their intrinsic properties, such as slow response, complex structure, or low reliability. Herein, we propose a transmissive metasurface platform composed of anisotropic all-dielectric meta-atoms including three parts: the elliptical silicon pillars (Si-pillars), circular Si-pillars, and a quartz substrate sandwiched between them. This platform enables the implementation of dual-channel holographic images by utilizing linear polarization (LP) multiplexing and circular polarization (CP) decoupling. As proof of concept, two transmissive anisotropic metasurfaces (MS-1 and MS-2) are designed and created. When illuminated with two orthogonal LP-polarization waves, the MS-1 can produce holographic images of the letters ‘X’ and ‘Y’ in the corresponding co-polarized channel. Additionally, the MS-2 is illuminated by the left-circularly polarized (LCP) wave, two holographic images with different patterns (‘L’ and ‘R’) are reconstructed in the co-polarized and cross-polarized channels respectively. Therefore, the proposed metasurfaces allowing for polarization-multiplexing or polarization-decoupling can exhibit considerable potential for applications in multifunctional integration and high information capacity.

Improved resolution in fiber bundle inline holographic microscopy using multiple illumination sources.

Recent work has shown that high-quality inline holographic microscopy images can be captured through fiber imaging bundles. Speckle patterns arising from modal interference within the bundle cores can be minimized by use of a partially-coherent optical source such as an LED delivered via a multimode fiber. This allows numerical refocusing of holograms from samples at working distances of up to approximately 1 mm from the fiber bundle before the finite coherence begins to degrade the lateral resolution. However, at short working distances the lateral resolution is limited not by coherence, but by sampling effects due to core-to-core spacing in the bundle. In this article we demonstrate that multiple shifted holograms can be combined to improve the resolution by a factor of two. The shifted holograms can be rapidly acquired by sequentially firing LEDs, which are each coupled to their own, mutually offset, illumination fiber. Following a one-time calibration, resolution-enhanced images are created in real-time at an equivalent net frame rate of up to 7.5 Hz. The resolution improvement is demonstrated quantitatively using a resolution target and qualitatively using mounted biological slides. At longer working distances, beyond 0.6 mm, the improvement is reduced as resolution becomes limited by the source spatial and temporal coherence.