COURSE
DESCRIPTION
This course introduces fundamental principles of optical system
design, covering a broad variety of imaging and microscopy instruments. The
material will span beyond physical optics to include computational methods for
optical signal processing, as well as basic principles governing light-matter
interactions. The course will include theory, hands-on experience to implement
and test methods on inexpensive hardware. We will discuss recent publications
and state-of-the-art optical systems which are task-driven, controlled by
computers, tailored to specific applications, and optimized to monitor or
manipulate complex systems such as biological tissue with extreme temporal and
spatial resolution.
PREREQUISITE:
Math 383 (Ordinary differential equations & introductory linear
algebra) or permission from the instructor.
The course and homework will include simulations. Students are encouraged to
install Matlab (with the Image acquisition toolbox
add-on), available at : https://software.sites.unc.edu/software/matlab
COURSE
GOALS
Students taking this course will be able to:
-
Understand the design and capabilities of most
commercial optical systems.
-
Identify the bottlenecks limiting performance
in any specific application.
-
Implement optical system design methods to
tailor software and hardware for a given task, and improve performance in
efficient and cost effective ways.
-
Process optically encoded information using
computer simulation.
-
Propose better optical instrumentation for research,
medical or industrial applications that currently rely on suboptimal technologies.
READING
This course does not require students to purchase any particular book.
However, additional reading material may be found in: Fundamentals of
Photonics, by Bahaa E. A. Saleh, Malvin
Carl Teich (ISBN: 978-0-471-35832-9). We will discuss
research papers published on open-source platforms.
GRADING
Written assignments 30 % , Presentations
and participation/preparedness for discussions 20 %, Midterm 25 %, Final Exam
25 %.
SCHEDULE
The first part of the course will introduce fundamental principles
for optical system design also known as "Ray optics".
(With pencil & paper homework sets)
W1 Thin
lenses: Descartes (Snell)'s law. Lens
equations, image-forming systems.
W2 Sampling the Light field: Ray
Transfer matrices and applications to linear optical system design.
W3 Processing the Light field:Plenoptic imaging, digital refocusing for 3D
image reconstruction.
The second part of the course will focus on wave optics: (With lab
demos and computational MATLAB simulation homework sets.)
W4 Optical waves: phase,
coherence, interferences.
W5 Wave propagation and simulation. Phase
Imaging and Computer Generated Holography.
W6Optics at the microscopic scale: Diffraction,
resolution limits.
W7 Dielectric Interfaces: Optics
through thin films, optical filters.
W8 MIDTERM
The third part of this course will discuss light matter
interactions as they occur at all ends of any optical instrument, either at the
level of a light source, within the sample, or on the detector. We will find
out how any of these interactions affect the amount of information that can be
exchanged with the sample with light. (Experimental homework: With an
inexpensive camera (webcam), and Matlab (IMAQ), real
time object tracking in low light environment).
W9 Scattering & aberrations: Optics in
biological tissue.
W10 Simple models for light-matter interactions:
Absorption
& fluorescence.
W11 High power optics: Nonlinearity
and multiphoton processes.
W12 Lasers
& sculpted light: A brief introduction to light sources and structured
illumination.
W13 Noise
in optical systems: Cameras, detectors, signal processing & image enhancing
methods.
W14 Super
resolution. Beyond AbbeÂ’s resolution limits.
W15 Computational
imaging & optical instrumentation. A review of the newest technologies,
and future research directions.
INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURES.
Class will be taught in lecture format and will include live demos with inexpensive optical
hardware, and simulations. Homework will begin with problem sets and will later include simulations and problems to be solved by editing Matlab code (with examples and online tutorials).
ACCOMMODATION
FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill facilitates the
implementation of reasonable accommodations, including resources and services,
for students with disabilities, chronic medical conditions, a temporary disability
or pregnancy complications resulting in difficulties with accessing learning
opportunities. All accommodations are coordinated through the Accessibility
Resources and Service Office. Please visit http://accessibility.unc.edu for
more information.
I reserve to right to make changes to the syllabus, including project due dates
and test dates (excluding the officially scheduled final examination), when
unforeseen circumstances occur. These changes will be announced as early as
possible so that students can adjust their schedules.