Michigan Technological University
Department of Physics

is pleased to announce a colloquium

with

Timothy J. Schulz

Information-Theoretic Bounds for Wavefield-Phase Estimation

Many optical sensing and imaging systems share a common need to identify and process the phase of an optical wavefield. The relatively large temporal frequencies associated with optical wavefields, however, make direct measurement of their phase a challenging task. Special purpose sensors are often used to perform the identification task, and the utilization of these sensors is typically motivated through heuristic arguments and ease of processing. Lenslet arrays, shearing interferometers, and phase-diversity systems are commonly used, but performance comparisons are usually linked to specific processing methods. Little work has been devoted to the fundamental limits on estimation accuracy that is imposed by the use of various sensing modalities. In this talk the Fisher information and Cramer-Rao bound are used to quantify - and compare - the information content of various sensing modalities used for wavefield-phase estimation.

Thursday, September 19, 2002

4:00 p.m., Fisher 139

Refreshments will be served

MTU | Physics | Colloquium