Up-converted ultraviolet luminescence of Er<Superscript>3+</Superscript>:BaGd<Subscript>2</Subscript>ZnO<Subscript>5</Subscript> phosphors for healthy illumination

Moderate level of exposure to the solar irradiation containing UV component is essential for health care. To incorporate the UV-emitting phosphors into the commercial YAG-based white light-emitting diode introduces the possibilities of healthy illumination to individuals’ daily lives. 1 mol.% Er³⁺-doped BaGd₂ZnO₅ (BGZ) particles were synthesized via sol-gel method and efficient up-converted luminescence peaked at 380 nm was detected under 480 nm excitation. The mixed phosphors with varied mass ratio of Er³⁺:BGZ and Ce³⁺:YAG particles were encapsulated to form LEDs. The study of the LEDs indicated that the introduction of BGZ component favored the enhancement of color-rendering index and the neutralization of the white light emitting. The WLED with the BGZ/YAG ratio of 8:2 was recommendable for its excellent overall white light luminous performances and UV intensity of 84.55 mW/cm². The UV illumination dose of the WLEDs with mixed YAG and BGZ was controllable by adjusting the ratio, the illumination distance and the illumination time. Er³⁺:BGZ phosphors are promising UVemitting phosphors for healthy indoor illumination.     

Performance of diffractive optical elements for homogenizing partially coherent light

The effectiveness of different types of diffractive optical element (DOE) for homogenizing partially coherent beams is analyzed, both analytically and numerically. The effectiveness is described by the homogenizing parameter, defined as the inverse of the normalized variance of the dose distribution. For an important class of DOEs designed with common discrete-Fourier-transform methods, it is found that the homogenizing parameter is only of the order of the number of coherence cells in the illuminating beam. However, for a different type of DOE that produces distinct beams under coherent illumination, the homogenizing parameter can be an order of magnitude higher. The inherent dehomogenizing effect caused by the limited temporal duration of the beam, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as dynamic speckle, is also considered.     

Variational estimation of inhomogeneous specular reflectance and illumination from a single view

Estimating the illumination and the reflectance properties of an object surface from a few images is an important but challenging problem. The problem becomes even more challenging if we wish to deal with real-world objects that naturally have spatially inhomogeneous reflectance. In this paper, we derive a novel method for estimating the spatially varying specular reflectance properties of a surface of known geometry as well as the illumination distribution of a scene from a specular-only image, for instance, recovered from two images captured with a polarizer to separate reflection components. Unlike previous work, we do not assume the illumination to be a single point light source. We model specular reflection with a spherical statistical distribution and encode its spatial variation with a radial basis function (RBF) network of their parameter values, which allows us to formulate the simultaneous estimation of spatially varying specular reflectance and illumination as a constrained optimization based on the I-divergence measure. To solve it, we derive a variational algorithm based on the expectation maximization principle. At the same time, we estimate optimal encoding of the specular reflectance properties by learning the number, centers, and widths of the RBF hidden units. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the method on images of synthetic and real-world objects.     

敦煌壁画颜料颜色非接触式测量条件优化研究

针对敦煌壁画颜料颜色的非接触式测量,以接触式颜色测量设备测得的光谱数据为参考,利用非接触式测量设备PR705光谱辐射度计,在不同照明和测量距离条件下,测量敦煌壁画色卡的光谱数据,并通过计算得到不同照明和测量距离条件下色块样本的光谱均方根(RMS)误差和色差(?E),以此作为评价测量结果的参数,通过优化拟合方法获得这两个指标关于照明和测量距离的函数关系,进而分析照明和测量距离对颜色测量精度的影响,从而实现测量条件的优化,提高颜色测量精度。研究结果表明,测量距离为0.5~1.0 m和2.0~2.5 m、照明距离为3.0~3.5 m的条件下,测量结果与参考值的RMS和?E均较小,可获得较好的测量精度,且光谱误差RMS0.006,色差?E0.5。     

Designation of lenses with a single freeform surface for multiple point sources

Optical lenses with a freeform surface can be designed for diverse illumination profiles with uniformity. However, most of the previous studies formulate the problem for a single point source, and the lens topology has freeform top and spherical bottom surfaces. In this study, the formulation is extended for multiple point sources, and a flat surface is included in the lens bottom topology for ease of prototyping and manufacturing. The extended formulation for multiple point sources requires only a freeform surface to design. The formulation of overdetermined coupling equations is solved by applying the weighted least-square method. The weightings are correlated with the emitting intensities of sources in terms of an inverse gamma function. The weighting scheme gives a parameter space for designation of illumination profile fit and uniformity. The adequacy of the extended formulation is demonstrated by simulation. Examples of circular and rectangular illumination for single and multiple point sources are studied. The simulation results show that unbalanced luminance distribution can be induced by an offset source and collimated by a lens, which is designated by taking the offset into account. For multiple point sources, illumination profile fit and uniformity are designated in trade off based on the parameter design.     

Experimental assessment of color-rendering indices and color appearance under varying setups

The Color-Rendering Index (CRI) for light source is a quantitative measure of the capability to preserve color appearance of illuminated objects. Recently, CRI has had a renewed interest because of the new LED-based lighting systems. These sources usually have a Color-Rendering Index rather low, but a good preservation of color appearance and a pleasant visual appeal. Various attempts to develop a more reliable new color-rendering index have been done so far, but researchers are still working on the topic. This article presents the open issues related to CRI and discusses some of the approaches available in literature. In order to have a baseline to verify the above points, we present an experiment performed with human observers to assess the appearance preservation of a color under a set of light sources. The test protocol uses 3D reference objects and can be used as an alternative way to assess CRI. The results are then compared with a range of available color rendering indices. The goal is not to make a rank among CRIs, rather to assess their variability relative to human judgment through different setups and light sources.     

Digital holographic microscopy with sequential off-axis illumination directions based on spatial light modulator

Digital holographic microscopy (DHM) with time-sequential off-axis illumination directions can synthesize a large aperture, and thus have a higher spatial resolution than the one with on-axis illumination. In this paper, time-sequential off-axis illumination directions are generated by a spatial light modulator (SLM) in DHM, and the residual phases along different illumination directions are suppressed by using the phase compensation technique, as such the image with resolution enhancement is reconstructed. The usage of SLM enables shifting the illumination for different orientations and phase shifts without mechanical motion. The experiments have been conducted to verify the feasibility of this method on the residual phase suppression.     

Efficiency analysis of diffractive lenses

Multilevel diffractive optical elements are necessary for achieving high-efficiency performance. Here the diffraction efficiency of a multilevel phase-only diffractive lens is analyzed. Approximate, as well as more accurate, approaches are presented. Both plane-wave and Gaussian illumination are discussed. It is shown that for many practical cases the diffraction efficiency can be determined by only a single parameter that takes into account the spatial bandwidth product as well as the focal length of the lens and the illumination wavelength. The analysis is based on the scalar theory and the thin-element approximation. Justification for doing this is presented. The results are valid for lenses with at least F/5.     

Application of in situ measurement of photo-induced variations in electron work function for in-depth understanding of the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanotubes

The electron work function (EWF) is the minimum energy required to move an electron at the Fermi level from inside a conducting material to its surface with zero kinetic energy. This fundamental parameter is directly related to many chemical, physical, and mechanical properties of materials. In this work, variations in EWF of TiO(2) nanotube arrays under light illumination were monitored in situ using a Kelvin probe in order to study the photon-induced electron excitation in the TiO(2) nanotubular arrays upon illumination. It was shown that the EWF could be used to investigate the electron-hole separation and recombination, helping us to better understand the photo-activity of the photocatalytic material. This study has demonstrated that EWF provides an effective parameter for understanding of semiconductors' photo-activities with different views that may not be achieved using traditional techniques, such as diffuse reflection spectroscopy and photoelectrochemical measurement.     

Absolute Measurement and Relative Measurement of Ultrasonic Nonlinear Parameters

The ultrasonic nonlinear parameter is measured from the amplitudes of the harmonic frequency components generated during the propagation of ultrasonic waves in a material. There are two definitions for this parameter: absolute and relative. The absolute parameter is defined by the displacement amplitude; however, it is difficult to measure because of the very small displacement amplitude of the harmonic components. Conversely, the relative parameter is defined by the amplitude of the detected signal, regardless of displacement. Many researchers use the relative parameter because it is easier to measure, although it is only available for a relative comparison of different materials. However, it has not yet been verified that the ratio of the relative parameters between two materials is identical to that of the absolute parameters. In this study, we make it clear that the ratio of the relative parameters is inherently not identical to that of the absolute parameters, but that they can be identical to each other by compensating for material-dependent differences, such as detection-sensitivity and wavenumber. For verification, the absolute and relative parameters were measured for two different materials. The results showed that the ratios of absolute and relative parameters were in good agreement after compensation.     

基于模糊非线性回归算法的图像复原

为了利用多幅具有相似降质特性的退化图像信息恢复出原图像,提出了一种新的基于模糊参量非线性回归估计的图像盲复原算法。 该算法充分利用多幅图像具有的相似降质特征,首先给出一种非理想光照分布参数的模糊非线性回归估计方法,然后通过估计出的参数得到与原图同样大小的非理想光照分布图,最后通过观测图像与非理想光照分布图相消的方法,对退化图像进行复原。 实验结果表明,该算法运算快速,对边缘细节及平滑区域均有良好的修复能力,在修复效果上明显优于一般图像修复算法。     

Cramer-Rao lower bounds on the estimation of the degree of polarization in coherent imaging systems

We analyze the estimation precision of the parameter of the orthogonal state contrast image (OSCI) under coherent illumination. This parameter represents the degree of polarization of the light if the materials that compose the scene are purely depolarizing. Two different estimation modes are considered, depending on the uniformity of the illumination of the scene. We first determine lower bounds on the estimation precision in both cases by computing the Cramer-Rao lower bounds (CRLBs) for unbiased estimation. This allows us to compare the potential precision that can be reached in each mode. We then consider the estimators based on empirical averaging of the data, and we show that there are cases where they are strongly biased. We thus propose and characterize another estimator based on the natural representation of the OSCI, which is asymptotically unbiased and whose variance is close to the unbiased CRLB.     

Scene-based Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensing: analysis and simulation

In many situations it is not possible for an adaptive optics system to use a point source to measure the phase derivative, such as imaging along slant paths through the atmosphere and observation of the earth from space with a lightweight optic. Instead, small subimages of the observed scene can be used in a scene-based wave-front sensing technique. This study presents three important advances in the understanding of this technique. Rigorous analysis shows how slope estimation performance depends precisely on scene content and illumination. Scaling laws for changes in illumination are derived. The technique, when applied to point sources, is more robust to detect size changes and background levels than current methods.     

Illumination normalization using independent component analysis and filtering

In this work, we separate the illumination and reflectance components of a single input image which is non-uniformly illuminated. Considering the input image and its blurred version as two different combinations of illumination and reflectance components, we use the conventional independent component analysis (ICA) to separate these two components. The separated reflectance component, which is an illumination normalized version of the input image, can then be used as an effective pre-processed (illumination normalized) image for different computer vision tasks e.g. face recognition. To this end, we present simulation results to show that our proposed pre-processing method called illumination normalization using ICA increases the accuracy rate of several baseline face recognition systems (FRSs). The proposed method showed improved performance of baseline FRSs when using the Extended Yale-B databases.     

A freeform optics design with limited data for extended LED light sources

Abstract

This paper proposes an optimization method for designing a freeform lens which can produce a good uniform circular illumination distribution and obtain high efficiency on the target plane. The initial surface profile of the freeform lens is calculated based on the laws of reflection and the energy conservation law, and then is fitted using the non-uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) method. The control points and weights are applied to parameterize the shape of freeform lens. The merit function for the optimization is defined as relative standard deviation (RSD) of the simulated illumination from the desired illumination and the efficiency of the lens. The simulation results indicate that the RSD is shown to be lower than 0.157, and maximum efficiency can be as high as 83.9%. In addition, it is demonstrated that this algorithm can obtain high uniform illumination distribution on the target plane with less variables. Compared with the conventional method, the simulation results show that the modified algorithm converges with less variables, good uniformity and high efficiency. Moreover, a freeform lens with different lighting patterns and non-rotational symmetry can be produced by the proposed method.     

基于激光诱导表面周期结构的微纳防伪结构色

激光诱导表面周期结构由于其周期相关的光栅衍射特性在明场下显示出鲜艳的结构色,备受研究人员的广泛关注,而微纳结构在显微镜暗场显示的颜色通常容易被忽略.本文报道通过飞秒激光对氧化铟锡薄膜加工形成双周期光栅结构,利用其在明场和暗场的观察下具有不同的颜色特性实现图像加密应用.通过控制飞秒激光的偏振、脉冲能量和扫描速度在氧化铟锡...     

Model of low spatial frequency diffractive elements recorded in photopolymers during and after recording

Photopolymer are appealing materials for diffractive elements recording. Two of their properties when they are illuminated are useful for this goal: the relief surface changes and the refractive index modifications. In this paper we use a 2-dimensional model, based on direct parameter measurements, for predicting the refractive index distributions during and after illumination. We have analyzed different recording spatial frequencies for photopolymers based on PVA/Acrylamide. This model was successfully applied to different photopolymer compositions with different values of monomer diffusion and polymerization rates.     

离散余弦变换域内的Retinex图像增强模型研究

针对现有离散余弦变换（DCT）域图像增强算法大多统一处理DCT系数,且不能有效抑制块状效应的问题,将Retinex思想引入DCT域,提出一种新增强算法：将DCT系数分为入射分量和反射分量,构造一种带强光抑制的函数,将入射分量映射到理想的动态范围;定义一种频带限制的对比度,实现反射分量的局部细节增强;使用子块分解方法抑制块状效应。实验结果表明,与现有Retinex及DCT域增强算法相比,该算法具有更好的细节增强及强光抑制效果,且能较好抑制块状效应。     

Application of a new method for experimental validation of polydispersed DEM simulation of silo discharge

There are numerous experimentally validated simulations for mono-dispersed systems in the literature based on discrete element method (DEM). In practice, however, most of granular systems consist of polydispersed assemblies of particles. Few studies have considered the effect of polydispersity, and yet fewer have experimentally validated the results. In this study, application of a new experimental method for granular flow analysis is presented, capable of validating the results of an in-house developed GPU-based DEM solver in both monodispersed and polydispersed assemblies. Silo discharge is chosen as the case study in which discharge time, flow pattern and more importantly, the outlet composition variation with time (for polydispersed configurations) have been experimentally evaluated and validated with numerical results. The outlet composition, which is the ratio of fine to coarse particles in the outlet stream, is an essential measure of segregation in polydispersed silos, and its numerical prediction can be correct only if the interactions between fine and coarse particles within the silo are modelled precisely. Measuring this parameter is not possible using conventional experimental methods established in silo discharge studies such as high speed photographing or high-frequency weight measurement of the bed. A new apparatus has been developed which can measure this parameter. The device is a compartmented wheel rotating with a motor which gathers the outlet stream of the silo into different compartments. Due to practical limitations, design and function of the apparatus are not ideal. Forward mixing, distribution of particles with the same resident time in different compartments, is the most critical problem. Non-idealities must be compensated by means of post-processing codes so that comparable results are obtained from experiment and simulation.     

Miniaturized digital holography sensor for distal three-dimensional endoscopy

A miniaturized sensor head for endoscopic measurements based on digital holography is described. The system was developed to measure the shape and the three-dimensional deformation of objects located at places to which there is no access by common measurement systems. A miniaturized optical sensor, including a complete digital holographic interferometer with a CCD camera, is placed at the end of a flexible endoscope. The diameter of the head is smaller than 10 mm. The system enables interferometric measurements to be made at speeds of as many as five reconstructions per second, and it can be used outside the laboratory under normal environmental conditions. Shape measurements are performed with two wavelengths for contouring, and the deformation is measured by digital holographic interferometry. To obtain full three-dimensional data in displacement measurements we illuminate the object sequentially from three different illumination directions. To increase the lateral resolution we use temporal phase shifting.