Dual-shearing interferometer for multi-modal hyperspectral imaging.

Area of Science:

• Optics and Photonics
• Spectroscopy
• Imaging Technology

Background:

• Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) is crucial for analyzing spectral information across various fields.
• Existing HSI instruments face limitations in field of view, polarization sensitivity, and spectral resolution.
• Multimodal imaging approaches are sought to overcome these limitations and provide richer data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel dual-shearing interferometer (DSI) for multimodal hyperspectral imaging.
• To demonstrate enhanced performance in field of view, polarization, and spectral resolution.
• To explore various imaging modalities enabled by the DSI.

Main Methods:

• Generation of two orthogonally stacked pairs of coherent beams using novel birefringent lateral shearing splitters.
• Capture of two sets of interferograms with full pixel resolution in a time sequence at double Nyquist frequency.
• Introduction and experimental verification of dual-field-of-view and differential-polarization hyperspectral imaging modalities.

Main Results:

• Successful generation of dual-shearing interferograms for multimodal HSI.
• Demonstration of dual-field-of-view and differential-polarization HSI capabilities.
• Experimental validation of the DSI's feasibility and performance.

Conclusions:

• The proposed dual-shearing interferometer effectively improves hyperspectral imaging performance.
• The DSI offers enhanced capabilities in field of view, polarization, and spectral resolution.
• The DSI platform supports diverse multimodal hyperspectral imaging applications.