Phase (waves)

About: Phase (waves) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 48256 publications have been published within this topic receiving 526394 citations.

Simultaneous Negative Phase and Group Velocity of Light in a Metamaterial

Abstract: We investigated the propagation of femtosecond laser pulses through a metamaterial that has a negative index of refraction for wavelengths around 1.5 micrometers. From the interference fringes of a Michelson interferometer with and without the sample, we directly inferred the phase time delay. From the pulse-envelope shift, we determined the group time delay. In a spectral region, phase and group velocity are negative simultaneously. This means that both the carrier wave and the pulse envelope peak of the output pulse appear at the rear side of the sample before their input pulse counterparts have entered the front side of the sample.

Phase-shifting speckle interferometry

Abstract: Speckle patterns have high frequency phase data, which make it difficult to find the absolute phase of a single speckle pattern; however, the phase of the difference between two correlated speckle patterns can be determined. This is done by applying phase-shifting techniques to speckle interferometry, which will quantitatively determine the phase of double-exposure speckle measurements. The technique uses computer control to take data and calculate phase without an intermediate recording step. The randomness of the speckle causes noisy data points which are removed by data processing routines. One application of this technique is finding the phase of deformations, where up to ten waves of wavefront deformation can easily be measured. Results of deformations caused by tilt of a metal plate and a disbond in a honeycomb structure brazed to an aluminum plate are shown.

Feature Detection in Human Vision: A Phase-Dependent Energy Model

Abstract: This paper presents a simple and biologically plausible model of how mammalian visual systems could detect and identify features in an image. We suggest that the points in a waveform that have unique perceptual significance as 'lines' and 'edges' are the points where the Fourier components of the waveform come into phase with each other. At these points 'local energy' is maximal. Local energy is defined as the square root of the sum of the squared response of sets of matched filters, of identical amplitude spectrum but differing in phase spectrum by 90 degrees: one filter type has an even-symmetric line-spread function, the other an odd-symmetric line-spread function. For a line the main contribution to the local energy peak is in the output of the even-symmetric filters, whereas for edges it is in the output of the odd-symmetric filters. If both filter types respond at the peak of local energy, both edges and lines are seen, either simultaneously or alternating in time. The model was tested with a series of images, and shown to predict well the position of perceived features and the organization of the images.

Movable aperture lensless transmission microscopy: a novel phase retrieval algorithm.

Abstract: We propose an iterative phase retrieval method that uses a series of diffraction patterns, measured only in intensity, to solve for both amplitude and phase of the image wave function over a wide field of view and at wavelength-limited resolution. The new technique requires an aperture that is scanned to two or more positions over the object wave function. A simple implementation of the method is modeled and demonstrated, showing how the algorithm uses overlapping data in real space to resolve ambiguities in the solution. The technique opens up the possibility of practical transmission lensless microscopy at subatomic resolution using electrons, x rays, or nuclear particles.

Noninterferometric Phase Imaging with Partially Coherent Light

Abstract: We demonstrate that interferometric imaging may be replaced by noninterferometric propagation-based techniques in many experiments. We explore propagation through the Poynting vector and find two classes of phase, one of which is topological in origin. Only this latter class may require interferometry to be determined, and even then only in specific well-defined circumstances. Our alternative definitions of phase are readily generalized to partially coherent radiation. Our analysis leads to an approach that is able to determine the absolute phase and the amplitude of a wave.