Physical optics

About: Physical optics is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5342 publications have been published within this topic receiving 101388 citations. The topic is also known as: wave optics.

Reflectance model for diffraction

Abstract: We present a novel method of simulating wave effects in graphics using ray-based renderers with a new function: the Wave BSDF (Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Function). Reflections from neighboring surface patches represented by local BSDFs are mutually independent. However, in many surfaces with wavelength-scale microstructures, interference and diffraction requires a joint analysis of reflected wavefronts from neighboring patches. We demonstrate a simple method to compute the BSDF for the entire microstructure, which can be used independently for each patch. This allows us to use traditional ray-based rendering pipelines to synthesize wave effects. We exploit the Wigner Distribution Function (WDF) to create transmissive, reflective, and emissive BSDFs for various diffraction phenomena in a physically accurate way. In contrast to previous methods for computing interference, we circumvent the need to explicitly keep track of the phase of the wave by using BSDFs that include positive as well as negative coefficients. We describe and compare the theory in relation to well-understood concepts in rendering and demonstrate a straightforward implementation. In conjunction with standard raytracers, such as PBRT, we demonstrate wave effects for a range of scenarios such as multibounce diffraction materials, holograms, and reflection of high-frequency surfaces.

Real-time turbulence profiling with a pair of laser guide star Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors for wide-field adaptive optics systems on large to extremely large telescopes.

Abstract: Real-time turbulence profiling is necessary to tune tomographic wavefront reconstruction algorithms for wide-field adaptive optics (AO) systems on large to extremely large telescopes, and to perform a variety of image post-processing tasks involving point-spread function reconstruction. This paper describes a computationally efficient and accurate numerical technique inspired by the slope detection and ranging (SLODAR) method to perform this task in real time from properly selected Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor measurements accumulated over a few hundred frames from a pair of laser guide stars, thus eliminating the need for an additional instrument. The algorithm is introduced, followed by a theoretical influence function analysis illustrating its impulse response to high-resolution turbulence profiles. Finally, its performance is assessed in the context of the Thirty Meter Telescope multi-conjugate adaptive optics system via end-to-end wave optics Monte Carlo simulations.

A modified geometrical optics method for scattering by dielectric bodies

Abstract: A method based on ray optics is developed for calculating the scattering from dielectric bodies. The fields of geometrical optics are used except for two types of rays where the fields must be corrected from physical optics solutions. The customary advantages of ray techniques are realized, namely, a simplicity in the resulting formulas, a ready interpretation of the scattering mechanism and the possibility of extension to a wider class of problems through the inclusion of additional rays. The method has been applied to several lossless dielectric shapes: the circular cylinder, the sphere, the prolate spheroid and to a lossy dielectric shell. The relative dielectric constants considered range from 0.25 to 1.80, except in the case of the shell. The calculated results are compared with those obtained from boundary value solutions, with the exception of the spheroid where measured values are used. Good results are obtained for all sizes considered except those which are very small and behave as Rayleigh scatterers. The failure in the region of Rayleigh scattering is to be expected. Thus, for the class of dielectric scatterers treated here there is no region of scattering resonance corresponding to that of similar metallic shapes where the geometrical optics solution is no longer valid.

XPATCH: a high-frequency electromagnetic scattering prediction code using shooting and bouncing rays

Abstract: This paper describes an electromagnetic computer prediction code for generating radar cross section (RCS), time domain signatures, and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images of realistic 3-D vehicles. The vehicle, typically an airplane or a ground vehicle, is represented by a computer-aided design (CAD) file with triangular facets, curved surfaces, or solid geometries. The computer code, XPATCH, based on the shooting and bouncing ray technique, is used to calculate the polarimetric radar return from the vehicles represented by these different CAD files. XPATCH computes the first-bounce physical optics plus the physical theory of diffraction contributions and the multi-bounce ray contributions for complex vehicles with materials. It has been found that the multi-bounce contributions are crucial for many aspect angles of all classes of vehicles. Without the multi-bounce calculations, the radar return is typically 10 to 15 dB too low. Examples of predicted range profiles, SAR imagery, and radar cross sections (RCS) for several different geometries are compared with measured data to demonstrate the quality of the predictions. The comparisons are from the UHF through the Ka frequency ranges. Recent enhancements to XPATCH for MMW applications and target Doppler predictions are also presented.© (1995) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

Diffraction by an arbitrary-angled dielectric wedge. I. Physical optics approximation

Abstract: A complete form is presented of the physical optics solution to diffraction by an arbitrary dielectric wedge angle with any relative dielectric constant in cases of both E- and H-polarized plane waves incident on one side of two dielectric interfaces. The solution, which is obtained by performing the physical optics (PO) approximation to the dual integral equation formulated in the spatial frequency domain, is constructed by the geometrical optics terms, including multiple reflection inside the wedge and the edge diffracted field. The diffraction coefficients of the edge diffracted field are represented in a simple form as two finite series of cotangent functions weighted by the Fresnel reflection coefficients. Far-field patterns of the PO solutions for a wedge angle of 45 degrees , relative dielectric constants 2, 10, and 100, and an E-polarized incident angle of 150 degrees are plotted in figures, revealing abrupt discontinuities at dielectric interfaces. >