Event-based sensors (EBSs) consist of a pixelated focal plane array in which each pixel is an independent asynchronous change detector. The analog asynchronous array is read by a synchronous digital readout and written to disk. As a result, EBS pixels consume minimal power and bandwidth unless the scene changes. Furthermore, the change detectors have a very large dynamic range (~120 dB) and rapid response time (~20 us). A framing camera with comparable speed requires ~3 orders of magnitude more power and ~2 orders of magnitude higher bandwidth. Remote sensing deployed in the field requires low power, low bandwidth, and low complexity algorithms. An EBS inherently allows for low power and low bandwidth, but there is a lack of mature image analysis algorithms. While analysis of conventional imagers draws from decades of image processing algorithms, EBS data is a fundamentally different format; a series of x, y, asynchronous time, and polarization change (increase/decrease) as opposed to x, y, and intensity at a regularly sampled framerate. Our team has worked to develop and refine image processing algorithms that use EBS data directly.
Event-based sensors (EBS) consist of a pixelated focal plane array in which each pixel is an independent asynchronous change detector. The analog asynchronous array is read by a synchronous digital readout and written to disk. As a result, EBS pixels consume minimal power and bandwidth unless the scene changes. Furthermore, the change detectors have a very large dynamic range (~120 dB) and rapid response time (~20 us). A framing camera with comparable speed requires ~3 orders of magnitude more power and ~2 orders of magnitude higher bandwidth. These features make EBS an appealing technology for proliferation detection applications. Remote sensing deployed in the field requires low power, low bandwidth, and low complexity algorithms. EBS inherently allows for low power and low bandwidth, but a drawback of event-based sensors is the lack of mature image analysis algorithms. While analysis of conventional imagers draws from decades of image processing algorithms, EBS data is a fundamentally different format; a series of x, y, asynchronous time, and polarization change (increase/decrease) as opposed to x, y, and intensity at a regularly sampled framerate. To leverage the advantages of EBS over conventional imagers, our team has worked to develop and refine image processing algorithms that use EBS data directly. We will discuss these efforts, including frequency and phase detection. We will also discuss the field applications of these algorithms such as degraded visual environments (e.g., fog) and defeating laser dazzling attempts.
Event-based sensors are a novel sensing technology which capture the dynamics of a scene via pixel-level change detection. This technology operates with high speed (>10 kHz), low latency (10 μs), low power consumption (<1 W), and high dynamic range (120 dB). Compared to conventional, frame-based architectures that consistently report data for each pixel at a given frame rate, event-based sensor pixels only report data if a change in pixel intensity occurred. This affords the possibility of dramatically reducing the data reported in bandwidth-limited environments (e.g., remote sensing) and thus, the data needed to be processed while still recovering significant events. Degraded visual environments, such as those generated by fog, often hinder situational awareness by decreasing optical resolution and transmission range via random scattering of light. To respond to this challenge, we present the deployment of an event-based sensor in a controlled, experimentally generated, well-characterized degraded visual environment (a fog analogue), for detection of a modulated signal and comparison of data collected from an event-based sensor and from a traditional framing sensor.
Controlling the permittivity of materials enables control over the amplitude, phase and polarization of light interacting with them. Tailorable and tunable transparent conducting oxides have applications in optical switching, beam steering, imaging, sensing, and spectroscopy.
In this work, we experimentally demonstrate wide tailoring and tuning of the optical properties of oxides to achieve fast switching with large modulation depths. In cadmium oxide, the permittivity and the epsilon-near-zero points can be tailored via yttrium doping to achieve large, ENZ-enhanced mid-IR reflectance modulation. In zinc oxide, the permittivity is tuned by interband pumping, achieving large reflectance modulation in the telecom regime. With aluminum-doped zinc oxide, we demonstrate tailorable Berreman-type absorbers that can achieve ultrafast switching in the telecom frequencies. Our work will pave the way to practical optical switching spanning the telecom to the mid-infrared wavelength regimes.
We experimentally investigate how the static and dynamic optical properties of cadmium oxide evolve with yttrium doping, for the design of optical and plasmonic devices spanning the near-infrared to the mid-infrared wavelengths. The metallicity is seen to increase and the epsilon-near-zero point blue-shifts with increasing yttrium-concentrations. We demonstrate broadband, optical-pump-induced reflection and transmission modulation ((up to 135% near ENZ), with picosecond response-times controlled by doping-concentration.
Metasurfaces have been investigated for various applications ranging from beam steering, focusing, to polarization conversion. Along with passive metasurfaces, significant efforts are also being made to design metasurfaces with tunable optical response. Among various approaches, voltage tuning is of particular interest because it creates the possibility of integration with electronics. In this work, we demonstrate voltage tuning of reflectance from a complementary metasurface strongly coupled to an epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) mode in an ultrathin semiconductor layer. Our approach involves electrically controlling the carrier concentration of the ENZ layer to modulate the polaritonic coupling between the dipole resonances of the metasurface and the ENZ mode for modulating the reflectance of the metasurface. The hybrid structure we fabricate is similar to MOSCAP configuration where the complementary metasurface offers a continuous gold top layer for biasing and positive/negative bias to the metasurface leads to accumulation/depletion of carriers in the ENZ layer beneath it. We optimized our structure by using InGaAs as the ENZ material because of its high mobility and low effective mass. This allowed us to reduce the doping requirement and thereby reduce the ionized impurity scattering as well as the reverse bias required to deplete the ENZ layer. For low leakage and efficient modulation of carrier density, we used Hafnia as the gate dielectric. We further added a reflecting backplane below the ENZ layer to enhance the interaction and by applying bias, we achieved spectral shifts of 500 nm and amplitude modulation of 11% of one of the polariton branches at 14 µm.
Coupling of metasurfaces to intersubband transitions (ISTs) in semiconductor quantum wells (QWs) has been extensively studied for various applications ranging from generating giant nonlinear optical response to designing tunable metasurfaces for applications such as ultrafast spatial optical modulators and voltage tunable filters. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate a fundamentally new approach of actively controlling the coupling of ISTs in QWs to a metasurface for voltage tuning its optical response. Unlike previous approaches, we use voltage-controlled quantum tunneling to control the carrier concentration in the QWs for turning on/off the ISTs. We design a multi-quantum well structure consisting of four undoped InGaAs wells with AlInAs barriers grown on top of a highly doped InGaAs layer that acts as an electron reservoir. The heterostructure is optimized such that the first IST in all the wells is at 11µm. A complementary gold metasurface with dipole resonances at 11µm is fabricated on top of the QW structure. We designed the heterostructure such that by applying a bias of 1V, the energy bands of all the QWs get aligned simultaneously, leading to the occupation of the ground state of all the QWs via quantum tunneling of the electrons from the electron reservoir. The ISTs which were turned off due to negligible electron density gets turned on at 1V, and this leads to coupling between the ISTs and the dipoles resonances of the metasurface. The voltage induced coupling leads to reflectance modulation which we confirmed experimentally by rapid scan double modulation FTIR measurements.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.