Fourier Optics

Any optical waveform can be considered a superposition of numerous plane waves. In this experiment, Abha Vishwakarma and I set out to exploit the relationship between diffraction and the Fourier transform. We operate in the far field diffraction regime or the Fraunhofer diffraction regime and set up an arrangement of optical elements that perform an optical Fourier transform of any input image. We explore using Fourier transform to do data search and sorting with examples of fingerprints. 

Next, we implemented a few basic optical image processors like low-pass filters, high-pass filters, etc. All of our observations were recorded using a CMOS sensor. We have also developed a code to computationally replicate our setup and were able to recreate the results numerically. A comparison between the numerical and experimental results was also performed.