Crosstalk-free achromatic full Stokes imaging polarimetry metasurface enabled by polarization-dependent phase optimization

Imaging polarimetry is one of the most widely used analytical technologies for object detection and analysis.To date,most metasurface-based polarimetry techniques are severely limited by narrow operating bandwidths and inevitable crosstalk,leading to detrimental effects on imaging quality and measurement accuracy.Here,we propose a crosstalkfree broadband achromatic full Stokes imaging polarimeter consisting of polarization-sensitive dielectric metalenses,implemented by the principle of polarization-dependent phase optimization.Compared with the single-polarization optimization method,the average crosstalk has been reduced over three times under incident light with arbitrary polarization ranging from 9μm to 12μm,which guarantees the measurement of the polarization state more precisely.The experimental results indicate that the designed polarization-sensitive metalenses can effectively eliminate the chromatic aberration with polarization selectivity and negligible crosstalk.The measured average relative errors are 7.08%,8.62%,7.15%,and 7.59%at 9.3,9.6,10.3,and 10.6μm,respectively.Simultaneously,the broadband full polarization imaging capability of the device is also verified.This work is expected to have potential applications in wavefront detection,remote sensing,light-field imaging,and so forth.

Optical design of common-aperture multispectral and polarization optical imaging system with wide field of view

Multispectral and polarization cameras that can simultaneously acquire the spatial,spectral,and polarization characteristics of an object have considerable potential applications in target detection,biomedical imaging,and remote sensing.In this work,we develop a common-aperture optical system that can capture multispectral and polarization information.An off-axis three-mirror optical system is mounted on the front end of the proposed system and used as a common-aperture telescope in the visible light(400 nm-750 nm)and long-wave infrared(LWIR,8μm-12μm)waveband.The system can maintain a wide field of view(4.5°)and it can demonstrate an enhanced identification ability.The off-axis three-mirror system gets rid of central obscuration while further yielding stable system resolution and energy.Light that has passed through the front-end common-aperture reflection system is divided into the visible light and LWIR waveband by a beamsplitter.The two wavebands then converge on two detectors through two groups of lenses.Our simulation results indicate that the proposed system can obtain clear images in each waveband to meet the diverse imaging requirements.

Optical polarization imaging for underwater target detection with non-scatter background

For conventional optical polarization imaging of underwater target,the polarization degree of backscatter should be pre-measured by averaging the pixel intensities in the no target region of the polarization images,and the polarization property of the target is assumed to be completely depolarized.When the scattering background is unseen in the field of view or the target is polarized,conventional method is helpless in detecting the target.An improvement is to use lots of co-polarization and cross polarization detection components.We propose a polarization subtraction method to estimate depolarization property of the scattering noise and target signal.And experiment in a quartz cuvette container is performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.The results show that the proposed method can work without scattering background reference,and further recover the target along with smooth surface for polarization preserving response.This study promotes the development of optical polarization imaging systems in underwater environments.

A STUDY ON PENETRATION DEPTH OF POLARIZATION IMAGING

Optical clearing improves the penetration depth of optical measurements in turbid tissues.Polarization imaging has been demonstrated as a potentially promising tool for detecting cancers in superficial tissues,but its limited depth of detection is a major obstacle to the effective application in clinical diagnosis.In the present paper,detection depths of two polarization imaging methods,i.e.,rotating linear polarization imaging(RLPI)and degree of polarization imaging(DOPI),are examined quantitatively using both experiments and Monte Carlo simulations.The results show that the contrast curves of RLPI and DOPI are different.The characteristic depth of DOPI scales with transport mean free path length,and that of RLPI increases slightly with g.Both characteristic depths of RLPI and DOPI are on the order of transport mean free path length and the former is almost twice as large as the latter.It is expected that they should have different response to optical clearing process in tissues.

Restoring Polarization Angle Map for High- Fidelity Underwater Imaging

Obtaining polarization information enables researchers to enhance underwater imaging quality by removing backscattering effect and to distinguish targets of different materials.However,due to the simplified assumption of unpolarized target light,most of the existing underwater polari-metric methods lose part of the polarization information,resulting in degraded imaging quality.In this work,a novel underwater polarimetric method is reported,which obtains the angle of polariza-tion(AOP)map to improve imaging quality.Specifically,the Stokes vectors were exploited to re-move the backscattering effect by obtaining two pairs of orthogonal polarization sub-images of the underwater scene.The target reflected light and the angle between the polarization directions of the target reflected light and the backscattered light were computed through the two groups of the or-thogonal polarized sub-images.The AOP map of the target light could be derived from the Stokes vectors.Then,the transmission map of the target light was estimated by using the non-local color priorly combined with the properties of light propagating underwater.Experiments show that the reported technique enables distinguishing different targets when the colors are similar.The quantit-ative metrics validate that the reported technique produces state-of-the-art performance for under-water imaging.

Research on Spectral Polarization Imaging Technique

The mechanism and characteristics of spectral polarization imaging technique are presented. The present research and developing trend of spectral polarization remote sensing are introduced. A novel method of spectral polarization imaging technique is discussed, which is based on static intensity modulation adding with double refraction crystal spectrometer. The static intensity modulation consists of two retarders and one polarizer. The double refraction crystal is used to generate interference image. The spectral and four Stokes vectors information can be obtained only by one measurement. The method of static intensity modulation is deduced in detail and is simulated by computer. The spectropolarimeter experimental system is also established in the laboratory. The basic concept of the technique is verified.

Real-time and high-transmission middle-infrared optical imaging system based on a pixel-wise metasurface micro-polarization array

Real-time polarization medium-wave infrared(MIR)optical imaging systems enable the acquisition of infrared and polarization information for a target.At present,real-time polarization MIR devices face the following problems:poor real-time performance,low transmission and high requirements for fabrication and integration.Herein,we aim to improve the performance of real-time polarization imaging systems in the MIR waveband and solve the above-mentioned defects.Therefore,we propose a MIR polarization imaging system to achieve real-time polarization-modulated imaging with high transmission as well as improved performance based on a pixel-wise metasurface micro-polarization array(PMMPA).The PMMPA element comprises several linear polarization(LP)filters with different polarization angles.The optimization results demonstrate that the transmittance of the center field of view for the LP filters is up to 77%at a wavelength of4.0μm and an extinction ratio of 88 d B.In addition,a near-diffraction-limited real-time MIR imaging optical system is designed with a field of view of 5°and an F-number of 2.The simulation results show that an MIR polarization imaging system with excellent real-time performance and high transmission is achieved by using the optimized PMMPA element.Therefore,the method is compatible with the available optical system design technologies and provides a way to realize real-time polarization imaging in MIR wavebands.

Influence of absorption in linear polarization imaging of melanoma tissues

The contrast mechanism of different polarization imaging techniques for melanoma in mouse skin is st udied using both experiments and Monte Carlo simulations.Total intensity,linear polariz-ation diference imaging(DPI),degree of polarization imaging(DOPI)and'rotating linearpolarization imaging(RLPl)are applied and the relative contrasts of these polarization imagingmethods between the normal and cancerous tissues are compared.A two-layer absorption-scat-tering model is proposed to explain the contrast mechanism of the polarization imaging formelanoma.By taking into account of both scattering of symmetrical and asymmetrical scat terersand absorption of inter-scatterer medium,the two-layer model reproduces the relative con trastsfor polarization images observed in experiments.The simulation results also show that,theparameters of polarization imaging change more dramatically with the variation of absorption inthe bottom layer than the top layer.

Comparative study of differential polarization imaging using linear and circular polarization in different scattering medium

Differential polarization imaging has been widely used to selectively probe the target embedded in turbid medium.A thorough understanding of image quality involved in differential polarization imaging is essential for practical use.Using polarized light Monte Carlo simulations,it has been investigated how the state of polarization of incident light and the optical properties of scattering medium affect the image contrast.The contrast for linear polarization is similar to that for circular polarization in the isotropic medium comprising small-particles.The image quality is more pronounced for circular polarization in the isotropic medium containing large-particles and the birefringent medium.Furthermore,differential polarization imaging provides better image quality for the birefringent medium compared with isotropic medium.The effect of particle-size and birefringence on the polarization characteristics of target light and backscattered light is investigated.With the help of numerical results,the polarization characteristics of target light and backscattered light,the image quality is well explained in the turbid medium mentioned above.

POLARIZATION IMAGING AND SCATTERING MODEL OF CANCEROUS LIVER TISSUES

We apply diferent polarization imaging techniques for cancerous liver tissues,and compare the relative contrasts for difference polarization imaging(DPI),degree of polarization imaging(DOPI)and rotating linear polarization imaging(RLPI).Experimental results show that a number of polarization imaging parameters are capable of differentiating cancerous cells in isotropic liver tisues.To analyze the contrast mechanism of the cancer:-sensitive polarization imaging parameters,we propose a scattering model cont aining two types of spherical scatterers and carry on Monte Carlo simula tions based on this bi-component model.Both the experimental and Monte Carlo simulated results show that the RLPI technique can provide a good imaging contrast of cancerous tissues.The bi-component scattering model provides a useful tool to ana-lyze the contrast mechanism of polarization imaging of cancerous tissues.

Identification of serous ovarian tumors based on polarization imaging and correlation analysis with clinicopathological features

Ovarian cancer is one of the most aggressive and heterogeneous female tumors in the world,and serous ovarian cancer(SOC)is of particular concern for being the leading cause of ovarian cancer death.Due to its clinical and biological complexities,ovarian cancer is still considered one of the most di±cult tumors to diagnose and manage.In this study,three datasets were assembled,including 30 cases of serous cystadenoma(SCA),30 cases of serous borderline tumor(SBT),and 45 cases of serous adenocarcinoma(SAC).Mueller matrix microscopy is used to obtain the polarimetry basis parameters(PBPs)of each case,combined with a machine learning(ML)model to derive the polarimetry feature parameters(PFPs)for distinguishing serous ovarian tumor(SOT).The correlation between the mean values of PBPs and the clinicopathological features of serous ovarian cancer was analyzed.The accuracies of PFPs obtained from three types of SOT for identifying dichotomous groups(SCA versus SAC,SCA versus SBT,and SBT versus SAC)were 0.91,0.92,and 0.8,respectively.The accuracy of PFP for identifying triadic groups(SCA versus SBT versus SAC)was 0.75.Correlation analysis between PBPs and the clinicopathological features of SOC was performed.There were correlations between some PBPs(δ,β,q_(L),E_(2),rqcross,P_(2),P_(3),P_(4),and P_(5))and clinicopathological features,including the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics(FIGO)stage,pathological grading,preoperative ascites,malignant ascites,and peritoneal implantation.The research showed that PFPs extracted from polarization images have potential applications in quantitatively differentiating the SOTs.These polarimetry basis parameters related to the clinicopathological features of SOC can be used as prognostic factors.

Infrared polarization image fusion based on combination of NSST and improved PCA

In view of the problem that current mainstream fusion method of infrared polarization image—Multiscale Geometry Analysis method only focuses on a certain characteristic to image representation.And spatial domain fusion method,Principal Component Analysis(PCA)method has the shortcoming of losing small target,this paper presents a new fusion method of infrared polarization images based on combination of Nonsubsampled Shearlet Transformation(NSST)and improved PCA.This method can make full use of the effectiveness to image details expressed by NSST and the characteristics that PCA can highlight the main features of images.The combination of the two methods can integrate the complementary features of themselves to retain features of targets and image details fully.Firstly,intensity and polarization images are decomposed into low frequency and high frequency components with different directions by NSST.Secondly,the low frequency components are fused with improved PCA,while the high frequency components are fused by joint decision making rule with local energy and local variance.Finally,the fused image is reconstructed with the inverse NSST to obtain the final fused image of infrared polarization.The experiment results show that the method proposed has higher advantages than other methods in terms of detail preservation and visual effect.

Precision integration of grating-based polarizers onto focal plane arrays of near-infrared photovoltaic detectors for enhanced contrast polarimetric imaging

Polarimetric imaging enhances the ability to distinguish objects from a bright background by detecting their particular polarization status,which offers another degree of freedom in infrared remote sensing.However,to scale up by monolithically integrating grating-based polarizers onto a focal plane array(FPA)of infrared detectors,fundamental technical obstacles must be overcome,including reductions of the extinction ratio by the misalignment between the polarizer and the detector,grating line width fluctuations,the line edge roughness,etc.This paper reports the authors’latest achievements in overcoming those problems by solving key technical issues regarding the integration of large-scale polarizers onto the chips of FPAs with individual indium gallium arsenide/indium phosphide(In Ga As/In P)sensors as the basic building blocks.Polarimetric and photovoltaic chips with divisions of the focal plane of 540×4 pixels and 320×256 superpixels have been successfully manufactured.Polarimetric imaging with enhanced contrast has been demonstrated.The progress made in this work has opened up a broad avenue toward industrialization of high quality polarimetric imaging in infrared wavelengths.

Study of Polarization Image Color Fusion Method Based on Color Transfer

Based on the characteristics that human eyes are sensitive to brightness and color, the lightness information of visible image and degree of linear polarization and polarization angle were fused in hue-saturation- value（HSV） space. To meet the observation of human eyes, hue adjustment based on color transfer was carried out to the fused image and hue was adjusted by polynomial fitting method. Hue adjustment method was improved considering the complicated real mapping relationship between hue gray scale of fused image and reference template image. The result shows that the color fusion method presented in this paper is superior to the traditional pseudo-color method and it is helpful to recognize the target from the environment correctly. The fusion result can reflect the difference of object＇s polarization characteristic, and get a natural fused image effect.

Correlation of image textures of a polarization feature parameter and the microstructures of liver fibrosis tissues

Mueller matrix imaging is emerging for the quantitative characterization of pathological microstructures and is especially sensitive to fibrous structures.Liver fibrosis is a characteristic of many types of chronic liver diseases.The clinical diagnosis of liver fibrosis requires time-consuming multiple staining processes that specifically target on fibrous structures.The staining proficiency of technicians and the subjective visualization of pathologists may bring inconsistency to clinical diagnosis.Mueller matrix imaging can reduce the multiple staining processes and provide quantitative diagnostic indicators to characterize liver fibrosis tissues.In this study,a fibersensitive polarization feature parameter(PFP)was derived through the forward sequential feature selection(SFS)and linear discriminant analysis(LDA)to target on the identification of fibrous structures.Then,the Pearson correlation coeffcients and the statistical T-tests between the fiber-sensitive PFP image textures and the liver fibrosis tissues were calculated.The results show the gray level run length matrix(GLRLM)-based run entropy that measures the heterogeneity of the PFP image was most correlated to the changes of liver fibrosis tissues at four stages with a Pearson correlation of 0.6919.The results also indicate the highest Pearson correlation of 0.9996 was achieved through the linear regression predictions of the combination of the PFP image textures.This study demonstrates the potential of deriving a fiber-sensitive PFP to reduce the multiple staining process and provide textures-based quantitative diagnostic indicators for the staging of liver fibrosis.

Multi-foci metalens for spectra and polarization ellipticity recognition and reconstruction

Multispectral and polarized focusing and imaging are key functions that are vitally important for a broad range of optical applications.Conventional techniques generally require multiple shots to unveil desired optical information and are implemented via bulky multi-pass systems or mechanically moving parts that are difficult to integrate into compact and integrated optical systems.Here,a design of ultra-compact transversely dispersive metalens capable of both spectrum and polarization ellipticity recognition and reconstruction in just a single shot is demonstrated with both coherent and incoherent light.Our design is well suited for integrated and high-speed optical information analysis and can significantly reduce the size and weight of conventional devices while simplifying the process of collecting optical information,thereby promising for various applications,including machine vision,minimized spectrometers,material characterization,remote sensing,and other areas which require comprehensive optical analysis.

Terahertz endoscopic imaging for colorectal cancer detection:Current status and future perspectives

Terahertz(THz) imaging is progressing as a robust platform for myriad applications in the field of security,health,and material science.The THz regime,which comprises wavelengths spanning from microns to millimeters,is non-ionizing and has very low photon energy:Making it inherently safe for biological imaging.Colorectal cancer is one of the most common causes of death in the world,while the conventional screening and standard of care yet relies exclusively on the physician's experience.Researchers have been working on the development of a flexible THz endoscope,as a potential tool to aid in colorectal cancer screening.This involves building a single-channel THz endoscope,and profiling the THz response from colorectal tissue,and demonstrating endogenous contrast levels between normal and diseased tissue when imaging in reflection modality.The current level of contrast provided by the prototype THz endoscopic system represents a significant step towards clinical endoscopic application of THz technology for invivo colorectal cancer screening.The aim of this paper is to provide a short review of the recent advances in THz endoscopic technology and cancer imaging.In particular,the potential of single-channel THz endoscopic imaging for colonic cancer screening will be highlighted.

Feature Extraction to Polar Image

Some algorithms of feature extraction in existing literature studied for image processing was the gray image with one-dimensional parameter. However, some feature points’ extraction for three-dimensional color of polar image, such as the color edge extraction, inflection points, and so on, was urgently to be solved a polar color problem. For achieving quickly and accurately the color feature extraction to polar image, this paper proposed a similar region of color algorithm. The algorithm was compared to polar image, and the effect to color extraction was also described by the combination of the proposed and existing algorithms. Moreover, this paper gave the comparison of the proposed algorithm and an existing classical algorithm to extraction of color feature. These researches in this paper provided a powerful tool for polar image classification, color feature segmentation, precise recognition, and so on.

A preliminary dayglow model for summer auroral images from Polar/UVI

In this study, we developed a summer dayglow model using auroral emissions acquired by the ultraviolet imager （UVI） onboard the Polar satellite. In the summer polar region, dayglow varies as a cosine-like function of the solar zenith angle （SZA）. The shape of this function can be characterized by its amplitude （Amp） and phase （Phi） factors. We first obtained the hourly Amp and Phi factors in summers from 1996 to 2000, and then investigated the universal time （UT） and solar activity variations of these two shape Factors. It was found that both factors were non-linearly dependent on the solar flux for all years, and the Amp factor showed clear UT variations under both low and high solar flux years. Thus, a dayglow model was constructed to consider the above dependencies. After the dayglow was removed automatically from the original UVI images via our model, the remaining auroral precipitation energy flux was in good agreement with previously reported magnetic local time latitude （MLT-MLAT） patterns. Our model provides a fast way to statistically process summer auroral precipitation of Polar/UVI and its variations.

A diffusion method based on polar coordinate for ultrasound images denoising

The paper presents a novel anisotropic diffusion approach to the problem of ultrasound images denoising based on the polar-coordinate representation.Local gradients based on the polar coordinate are introduced and they are more suitable for ultrasound images than horizontal gradients and vertical gradients commonly used in anisotropic diffusion methods.Moreover,an adaptive adjustment scheme for the threshold parameter in conduction functions is presented according to the incident angle of the ultrasonic beam with respect to the organ surface.Furthermore,based on the structure matrix,an edge-adaptive diffusion model is introduced,which can selectively preserve the edge from the blurring or smooth noise.Experimental results of real ultrasound images show the validity of the presented approach,which takes the physical imaging mechanism of ultrasonic devices into account.