Optical tracking novelty filter

Abstract

We demonstrate an optical filter that displays the time-dependent features of a scene. The heart of the device is an interferometer that is sensitive not to the difference between two optical paths lengths but to changes in the path-length difference. The interferometer arms share a phase-conjugating mirror. The phase conjugator ensures that, at steady state, the output of the interferometer is dark. The response of the interferometer to a step differential change in the optical lengths is a decaying exponential having a time constant governed by the time response of the phase conjugator. The interferometer may be used to monitor time- and space-dependent optical phase changes that are due, for example, to transparent fluid motion. With a modified liquid-crystal television used as a spatial light phase modulator in the interferometer, we detect time-dependent features of an image viewed by a video camera.