Abstract

From Diffractive Optics to Transforms, Signal/Image Processing and Machine Learning

In a narrow sense, diffractive optics involves creation of diffractive optical elements (DOE's) by computation in a digital computer, followed by actual implementation by a recording system. In another sense, diffractive optics include imaging techniques and topics related to diffraction such as synthetic aperture radar and sonar, magnetic resonance imaging, diffractive tomography, confocal microscopy, super resolution, phase and amplitude recovery, lensless imaging, and optical cryptography.

Diffractive optics evolves from wave theory characterized by partial differential equations. Its integral modeling is often based on the Fourier transform. The techniques used in implementing DOE's are related to analog and digital communications. Optical signal processing based on diffractive optics is similarly related to analog and digital signal/image processing. Recent techniques such as compressive sensing can be traced back to topics such as phase recovery and lensless imaging in diffractive optics. Optical cryptography is another common area between such disciplines. Iterative optimization techniques used in diffractive optics are similar to optimization techniques  used in machine learning. Applications of diffractive optics also have considerable overlap with application of machine learning. Cross fertilization between these disciplines often leads to novel solutions in various applications.

Biography

Okan K. Ersoy is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. His current research interests include diffractive optics, machine learning and pattern recognition, decision analytics, digital signal/image processing, transform and time-frequency methods, and their applications in various technologies. He has published approximately 250 papers, two books and several book chapters in his areas of research. He also holds 5 patents.  He is a fellow of IEEE, and a fellow of Optical Society of America. 

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