Fourier Optics

V Sharma
Lenses
Ref: Chapter 5 of Goodman
 Announcement
Final Exam will be on 27th April from 14:00 to 17:00 Hrs.
Room nr. 318
 Fourier transforming properties of optical systems: Phase
Transformation by a thin lens

When light passes through a lens, it undergoes a phase transform

A lens is said to be thin if a ray entering through one side at point (x,y)
emerges on the opposite side at the same point (x,y) (negligible ray
translation).
Let Ul(x, y) be the field incident on the first tangent plane, the field
leaving the lens is then:

For calculating (x, y) we split the lens in two parts

 02

The radius of curvature R is positive for a concave surface, and negative for a
convex one.
where
 The paraxial approximation

Substitute the above equation in

lens transformation equation

We get:
IMPORTANT: The physical parameters of the lens n, R1 and R2 can be combined
in one single parameter f (which we call the MAGICAL focal distance).

Famous Lens Maker Formula

The phase transformation of the lens now becomes:

We adopted the sign conventions for optical element (as was discussed in a few
class back), to calculate phase transformation.
 Wave front at
concave and
convex lens

When a plane unit-amplitude wave is incident perpendicular on the lens,

the field leaving it is given by:

describes a curvature of the wavefront converging

a constant phase retardation
towards a point on the z-axis at a distance f from
the lens
Fourier-transforming properties of a mask
placed against a lens
Lets now position a (gray-scale) transparency with amplitude transmittance t0(x, y)
in a plane right in front of a lens which is supposed to be larger than the
transparency. This is now uniformly illuminated by a normally incident,
monochromatic plane wave of amplitude A, propagating along the +z axis.

The field U incident on the lens is then

The field immediately after the lens:

 The field after the lens then propagates further along the z-axis. The field at a
distance z = f (i.e. in the back focal plane) can be calculated with the Fresnel
diffraction formula

Substitute Ul

Two-dimensional Fourier transform of the

transmittance function t0(x, y) of the
transparency/object placed before the lens

The spatial frequencies (fx, fy) and the positions in the focal plane (xf, yf ) are related
by:
Fourier transform by far field propagation or lens

gin(x,y)

gout(x,y)
Fresnel's principle guaranties that the relative
phases in the focal plane of the lens are equal to
the relative phases for a focus at infinity.
The 4-f system performs a Fourier transform followed by an inverse Fourier
transform, so that the image is a perfect replica of the object.
Visualization
Fourier Decomposing
Functions
Here, we write a
square wave as sin(t)
a sum of sine
waves.

sin(3t)

sin(5t)

Any signal (in our case visual images) can be

expressed as a sum of a series of sinusoids.
 Lower spatial frequency Higher spatial frequency

The sinusoidal pattern can be captured in a single Fourier term that encodes
1: the spatial frequency,
2: the magnitude (positive or negative)
3: the phase.

The spatial frequency is the frequency across space (the x-axis in this
case) with which the brightness modulates
The Fourier transform encodes all of
the spatial frequencies present in an
image simultaneously
 Brightness Image Fourier transform

Similarity theorem: a "stretch" of the coordinates in the space domain (x, y) results
in a contraction of the coordinates in the frequency domain ( fx, fy), plus a change
in the overall amplitude of the spectrum.
 Brightness Image Fourier transform

Linearity theorem:
F{ug + ph} = uF{g) +pF{h};
that is, the transform of a
weighted sum of two (or more)
functions is simply the
identically weighted sum of
their individual transforms

Different Fourier coefficients combine additively to produce

combination patterns
Higher Harmonics
1 3 5 7
1 1+3 1+3+5 1+3+5+7
Fourier Filtering

Brightness Image Fourier Transform Inverse Transformed

 Low-Pass Filtered Inverse Transformed

Mathematically, low-pass filtering is

equivalent to an optical blurring function.
 High-Pass Filtered Inverse Transformed

High pass filter gives sharp contours and crisp edges

it loses the larger regions of dark and bright

+ =
low-pass filtered inverse-transformed image + the high-pass
inverse-transformed image = the original unfiltered image
Band-Pass Filtered Inverse Transformed