New partially coherent unidirectional imaging system enhances visual data transmission

Phys.org  October 28, 2024 Unidirectional imagers form images of input objects only in one direction. Researchers at UCLA reported unidirectional imaging under spatially partially coherent light and demonstrated high-quality imaging only in the forward direction (A → B) with high power efficiency while distorting the image formation in the backward direction (B → A) along with low power efficiency. Their analyses revealed that when illuminated by a partially coherent beam with a correlation length of ≥∼1.5λ, where λ was the wavelength of light, diffractive unidirectional imagers achieved robust performance, exhibiting asymmetric imaging performance between the forward and backward directions. A […]