A Phase Difference Measurement Method for Integrated Optical Interferometric Imagers

Interferometric imagers based on integrated optics have the advantages of miniaturization and low cost compared with traditional telescope imaging systems and are expected to be applied in the field of space target detection. Phase measurement of the complex coherence factor is crucial for the image...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jialiang Chen, Qinghua Yu, Ben Ge, Chuang Zhang, Yan He, Shengli Sun
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2023-04-01
Series:Remote Sensing
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/8/2194
Description
Summary:Interferometric imagers based on integrated optics have the advantages of miniaturization and low cost compared with traditional telescope imaging systems and are expected to be applied in the field of space target detection. Phase measurement of the complex coherence factor is crucial for the image reconstruction of interferometric imaging technology. This study discovers the effect of the phase of the complex coherence factor on the extrema of the interference fringes in the interferometric imager and proposes a method for calculating the phase difference of the complex coherence factor of two interference signals by comparing the extrema of the interferometric fringes in the area of approximate linear change in the envelope shape to obtain the phase information required for imaging. Experiments using two interferometric signals with a phase difference of <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi>π</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula> were conducted to verify the validity and feasibility of the phase difference measurement method. Compared with the existing phase measurement methods, this method does not need to calibrate the position of the zero optical path difference and can be applied to the integrated optical interferometric imager using a single-mode fiber, which also allows the imager to work in a more flexible way. The theoretical phase measurement accuracy of this method is higher than 0.05 <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi>π</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula>, which meets the image reconstruction requirements.
ISSN:2072-4292