The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 01, 2000
Filed:
Dec. 05, 1997
Charles A DiMarzio, Cambridge, MA (US);
Northeastern University, Boston, MA (US);
Abstract
An optical quadrature interferometer is presented. The optical quadrature interferometer uses a different state of polarization in each of two arms of the interferometer. A light beam is split into two beams by a beamsplitter, each beam directed to a respective arm of the interferometer. In one arm, the measurement arm, the light beam is directed through a linear polarizer and a quarter wave plate to produce circularly polarized light, and then to a target being measured. In the other arm, the reference arm, the light beam is not subject to any change in polarization. After the light beams have traversed their respective arms, the light beams are combined by a recombining beamsplitter. As such, upon the beams of each arm being recombined, a polarizing element is used to separate the combined light beam into two separate fields which are in quadrature with each other. An image processing algorithm can then obtain the in-phase and quadrature components of the signal in order to construct an image of the target based on the magnitude and phase of the recombined light beam. The system may further be used for lensless imaging.