This invention embodies methods, devices and systems that utilizes Digital Fringe Projection (DFP) to generate three dimensional (3D) images of an object based on measurement of polarizations and/or color light in a single shot. Unlike conventional techniques, which require sequential measurements, the novel systems acquire high dynamic range information in a single shot and can be applied to rapidly changing scenes and objects. It's fast, portable, compact, and has low power consumption.

Background:

Three dimensional (3D) imaging techniques have applications in industrial metrology, virtual and augmented reality, remote sensing, medical diagnostic, biometrics and homeland security. To achieve 3D imaging, existing techniques, such as light detection and ranging (LIDAR), stereovision, light field or plenoptics imaging, structured light illumination and digital fringe projection (DFP), have been developed. However, LIDAR, structured light illumination and DFP often require scanning and acquisition of multiple frames. Stereovision requires more than one camera at different locations to provide accuracy. Plenoptics imaging requires complex algorithms and computation hardware for 3D reconstruction; in addition, the spatial resolution is reduced.

Applications:

• Industrial metrology
• Virtual and augmented reality
• Medical diagnostics, biometrics
• Homeland Security
• Remote sensing

Advantages:

• Efficient/rapid ease-of-use
• Requires only a single frame capture
• Fast, compact, with high dynamic range
• Provides information about material characteristics

Status: U.S. issued patent #11,605,172 and #11,900,624

This invention describes a device that functions as a highly accurate and complex receiver for optical object discrimination. This technology has applications and improvements in a large range of object-discrimination-based technologies, such as QR or barcode readers.

Background:

Object discrimination technologies are widely used and have wide-ranging applications in various industries. The current standard and closest technology would be QR and passive barcode readers. The inventors have devised a new device and method that improves on applications and accuracy.

In this technology, the receiver will be utilized in high-stability contexts where 1- or 2-dimensional visual codes or other objects must be read or identified using small optics at large distances. Additionally, the technology will be a vast improvement in situations where the use of RF or other active signaling is precluded, such as in automated sensing contexts.

Applications:

• Optical object discrimination device using spatial mode analyzer or spatial parity sorter for the purpose of arbitrary 2D object classification
• Applications in astronomy, medical imaging, and other optical microscopy

Advantages:

• Highly accurate
• Diverse range of object discrimination applications

This technology is an extended depth of field (EDOF) system that maintains high lateral resolution while extending the depth of field. It is based on white light interferometry but adds a feature where the interferometer scans through the different depths of an object to create a depth map.

Background:

White light interferometry offers a solution to the age-old trade-off in optics between depth of field and lateral field of view. Using white light interferometry, contrast fringes in interference images appear near zero optical path difference and best focus. By scanning through a range of height positions and integrating the resulting 3D data cube into a final 2D image, one can create a focused, full-color 2D object image. However, this process is both data collection and processing intensive. This project proposes a method to reduce both data collection time and the degree of post-processing needed to create a final focused image.

The relative phase between the signal and reference of the interferometer is not taken into account when examining the contrast fringes. The most accurate height measurements with height resolution on the order of 0.5 nanometers are from systems using best focus from contrast fringes and phase-shift data to correlate phase differences to surface height deltas. This project uses the contrast fringes for best focus measurements for height resolution on the order of microns.

Applications:

• Optical surface profilers (measurement tools using white light interferometry) are available from a number of optics companies, but data acquisition speeds are on the order of seconds. This project could reduce processing time to a fraction of a second.
• Currently, interferometric methods are used for ophthalmology but interest is growing in the medical community for non-invasive detailed surface measurement techniques.

Advantages:

• Leverages existing technology and improves efficiency
• Faster data collection and less post-processing
• Expand use of white light interferometry systems to industrial screening conditions requiring higher inspection rates

This technology describes an eigen-projection adaptive algorithm that can be used for super-resolution imaging in a variety of contexts, including life-sciences microscopy or astronomy.

Background:

Traditional advanced microscopy or telescopy uses several different measuring methods to estimate brightness, deduce position, and discriminate between object bodies. These methods work well, but often there must be additional technology or algorithms deployed to enhance the resolution.

In this technology, the inventors propose a new and improved adaptive algorithm that can yield super-resolution imaging in a variety of contexts. They propose to do this by having developed a symmetric logarithmic derivative eigen-projection adaptive algorithm. The algorithm works by its two main stages of initialization and establishing the symmetric logarithmic derivative (SLD) eigen-projection.

Applications:

• Super-resolution life sciences or subcellular microscopy
• Telescopic devices for astronomical or extra-galactic imaging and viewing

Advantages:

• Super-resolution
• Adaptive algorithm

This invention consists of the design and embodiments of a statically optical see through head-mounted displays (OST-HMDs) in which the angular pixel density decreases with the increase of the filed eccentricity according to a specified angular pixel density function. 

To facilitate the head-mounted display capability to simultaneously see the image rendered by a display and the view go the real-world scene, a freeform prism is utilized as the optical combiner to merge the optical paths of the virtual image display and real-world view. The implementation of the described features creates minimally perceivable image artifacts and image resolution discontinuity and may further eliminate or limit the need for an eye tracker or scanning mechanism.

Background: 

Head-mounted displays (HMDs) have been created for numerous effective purposes, including training, medical education, navigation, and various other applications. Traditional HMD configurations utilize the widely accepted rectilinear sampling approach, which is primarily employed in 2D display and imaging systems. As a result of using such configurations, conventional HMD are subject to the inherent trade-off between field of view (FOV) and resolution.

To alleviate the trade-off between FOV and resolution, a foveated display, inspired by the foveation properties of the human eye, can be generally defined as a method that identifies a user's region of interest (ROI) and allocates limited resources, such as a finite number of pixels or data processing and transmission bandwidth, differently between the ROI and the peripheral area outside the ROI region.

Applications: 

• Training
• Medical education
• Navigation
• Entertainment

Advantages: 

• Realizes a large FOV and high resolution in a display system at the same time
• Achieves a spatially varying angular pixel density distribution for the virtual display path

Researchers at the University of Arizona have developed a rapid design approach for designing nanophotonic devices. The invention is a novel implementation of  an iterative optimal approach related to the known coupled dipole modeling approach. The novel implementation is several orders of magnitude faster than finite difference time domain approaches.

Background: 
Most current approaches to the design of nanophotonic devices are based on 2D systems and use slow simulation routines such as finite difference time domain (FDTD). While these approaches are suitable for the design of 2D structures using lithographic approaches, they are not well suited for the design of 3D structures.

Applications:

• Biological sensing
• Optical computing
• Superresolution microscopy
• Compact waveguide-to-fiber couplers

Advantages:

• Several orders of magnitude faster than conventional approaches
• Better performance of 3D nanostructures

This invention is a methodology for using multi-static, long baseline imaging radar for the tracking, imaging and classification of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs).

Background:
Since the launch of Sputnik in 1957, mankind has progressively added more satellites, and consequently more debris, into Earth's orbit. As of 2013, NASA has tracked over 500,000 pieces of debris larger than the size of an average marble, and this number is constantly increasing. The amount of satellites and debris have posed a problem with the ability to track and image objects, especially those that are small but still problematic because of their high speed. Traditional techniques for tracking these satellites are not sufficient enough to provide high-resolution images, meaning small objects are often missed. The technique presented here will allow researchers and defense agencies to locate space objects and track them in a more timely manner.

Applications:

• High resolutions imaging of NEOs
• Characterization of NEOs 

Advantages:

• Produces high-resolution images
• Potential to support improvements to tracking and predicting NEO flight paths
• Potential to support mitigation of space debris

This technology is a simple apparatus that reduces the angular drift of an optical mount when subjected to thermal or vibrational perturbations. The novel device provides inexpensive mounts with the ability to achieve <2 μrad/C drift when exposed to unbalanced thermal shock either to one part of the mount itself or to the entire optical system.

Background:
Current commercial kinematic optical mounts suffer from instability when exposed to fluctuations in temperature and vibrations. Often, the only way to mitigate the negative effects of such perturbations is through purchasing expensive high-end custom mounts. 

Applications:

• Kinematic optical mounts

Advantages:

• Ease of use
• Inexpensive
• Can be used with existing kinematic mounts

Status: issued U.S. patent #11,846,828

This invention is an ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) system that disinfects air through ultraviolet C (UVC) radiation. The system has low power consumption and high sterilization and flow rate to both neutralize airborne pathogens and filter all the air inside a room quickly without disturbing the environment inside the room. 

Background:
Removal or neutralization of airborne pathogens from air inside a hospital, classroom, restaurant, nursing home, or store can reduce odor, allergens, and pathogens causing infectious diseases. Among the many techniques, UVGI that utilizes UVC light of optimal wavelength in combination with air filters is the most common. 

This UVGI system can operate as standalone or in addition to the existing ventilation system. The configuration can be optimized for high air change per hour (> 10 ach) without sacrificing room comfort and noise level. 

The UVGI market offers a number of commercially available products, ranging from small standalone units for sterilization of individual rooms to large scale screening of industrial HVAC units. However, many products rely on existing air flow systems rather than optimizing air flow and sterilization in an integrated system.

Applications:

• Healthcare air disinfection
• HVAC ultraviolet germicidal irradiation

Advantages:

• Efficient
• High air change rate
• Adaptable to different room size and shape
• Effective
• Improved performance over existing systems

This technology is a telecentric microscope design that reconciles the resolution vs. depth of field issues associated with microscope systems. The microscope's design maintains constant system magnification while it performs a depth scan with an electrically controlled vari-focal lens. 

Background:
The classic tradeoff between optical resolution and depth of field in microscopy forces a conventional system to take measurements at different depths and then reconstruct three-dimensional data for an extended depth of field (EDOF), a time-consuming process due to the limited speed of mechanical movement and complexity of data extraction.

Applications:

• High-performance freeform optics metrology
• Biomedical imaging

Advantages:

• Achieves high resolution and depth of field information
• Supports multiple imaging modalities
• Addresses the limitations of conventional microdeflectometry and EDOF

Status: issued U.S. patent #10,725,279

Researchers at the University of Arizona have developed an optical design for laparoscopes that can obtain wide angle and high magnification images of a surgical area in real time. The two images enable seamless registration between the low and high-resolution images, providing surgeons with the best of both worlds. In addition, the innovation enables flexible adjustment of the probe length and offers spatial resolution more than nine times better than state-of-the art endoscopic imaging technology. 

Background:
Current state-of-art laparoscopes suffer from a tradeoff between spatial resolution and field of view (FOV). In order to see fine details of a surgical field, the procedures are usually performed at a highly zoomed-in view. That, in turn, leads to the loss of peripheral vision and awareness of situations occurring outside the immediate focus area of the laparoscope. At present, this limitation is clinically addressed by manually moving the entire laparoscope in and out of the camera port to obtain either close-up or wide-angle views, respectively. This requires a trained assistant to hold, move, and manipulate the camera almost constantly.

Advantages:

• Real-time high-resolution (40 microns) and wide angle
• Concurrent dual view capture
• Reduced time for surgery or inspection

Applications:

• Laparoscopic surgery
• Endoscopy, colonoscopy
• Remote inspection

Status: issued U.S. patent #10,064,545

This invention is an interferometric system that captures two interferograms and utilizes a deep learning algorithm to process two interferograms. This invention enables the measurement of surface roughness and surface shape using the interferometric system and neural network to process the data. The deep learning portion of the system is in a compact form allowing for on-machine measurements and a suitable attachment to the interferometric system.

Background:
The application of high precision optical elements are vast, from smart-phone camera lenses, telescopes, in addition to optical fibers and much more. With an increase in technological development the needs for high precision optical elements, accurate and efficient fabrication process is highly demanded, placing ultrahigh requirement on the measurement tools to improve workpiece quality control and manage machining process. As a recognized accurate testing method, interferometry has been a powerful method for non-contact surface metrology of optical elements. There are two unique interferometry methods to measure surface form and roughness. Currently the commercial interferometric instruments have a separate procedure to acquire the surface form and roughness measurements. This adds additional costs, time, and fabrication errors to the interferometric process of measurements.

Applications:

• Metrology
• Optical testing and measurement
• Interferometric systems

Advantages:

• On-machine deep learning
• All in one process for surface form and roughness measurements
• Cost efficient, due to reduced procedure
• Less fabrication errors potential, due reduced procedure
• Compact deep learning attachment

This invention is a Whispering-Gallery Mode (WGM) microtoroidal optical resonator designed for ultra-sensitive detection of nitric oxide gas, achieving remarkable precision with a detection limit as low as 2.34 parts per trillion (ppt). This exceptional sensitivity is achieved through the utilization of ferrocene-containing polymeric coatings created via RAFT polymerization, which enhance selectivity for the target analyte, nitric oxide. The system, known as the Frequency Locked Optical Whispering Evanescent Resonator (FLOWER), tracks the real-time shifts in resonance with sub-femtometer resolution as nitric oxide gas is introduced, allowing for both reversible and irreversible sensing within a concentration range of 6.4 ppt to 240 ppt and even higher concentrations. Notably, the device also exhibits robust resistance to humidity, maintaining its sensing performance effectively up to 47% humidity. The study evaluates the impact of different chemical compositions and molecular weights of the ferrocene-containing polymeric coatings on sensing performance. This invention represents a significant advancement in gas sensing technology, enabling the detection of extremely low concentrations of nitric oxide with high precision and selectivity.

Background: 
Systems for the selective and rapid detection of gases are important tools used to monitor environmental impacts, occupational safety, and human biomarkers. Nitric oxide is a common byproduct of vehicle exhaust and industrial processes involving combustion, making it a major emission contributing to ozone layer depletion. In addition to its environmental impacts, nitric oxide also serves as an important biomarker of respiratory health associated with asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Furthermore, nitric oxide is easily oxidized in air to nitrogen dioxide, which is highly corrosive, toxic, and a danger to human respiratory health. To mitigate injury due to gas exposure and monitor the environmental impacts of industrial processes, selective sensors for nitric oxide detection must be developed and deployed.

Current solutions for nitric oxide detection typically rely on various methods, including chemiluminescence, electrochemical sensors, and optical sensors such as cavity ring-down spectroscopy. However, these methods often struggle to achieve the level of sensitivity and selectivity needed for accurately measuring trace concentrations of nitric oxide in complex environments. This technology is capable of real-time, reversible and irreversible sensing over a wide concentration range while maintaining resistance to humidity, making it a versatile and highly effective tool for nitric oxide detection, surpassing the limitations of traditional detection methods.

Applications: 

• Nitric oxide detection
• Industrial safety
• Occupational safety
• Environmental impact and research
• Biomedical research

Advantages: 

• Increased sensitivity 
• Wide detection range
• Resistant to humidity

This invention uses a photothermal spectroscopy method to detect and identify individual molecules/particles without the use of fluorescent tags or radioactive ligands. Whispering gallery optical sensor technologies are on the cutting edge of biosensing technology. Photothermal microscopy has found applications in diverse fields, including materials science, nanotechnology, biology, and medicine, offering valuable insights into thermal transport phenomena, photothermal interactions, and thermal properties of complex structures. 

Background: 
Traditional methods of optical microscopy require fluorescent tags and radioactive ligands to detect and identify the molecules or particles being studied. This invention enables the ability to capture both spatial and temporal information, making it a powerful tool for studying thermal dynamics and exploring heat-related phenomena at the micro and nanoscale.

Applications: 

• Medical diagnostics
• Nanotechnology
• Biology 
• Materials science

Advantages: 

• Label-free imaging
• High sensitivity and specificity
• Generative 3D imaging

This technology utilizes optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) to collect high resolution temperature measurements in biochemical applications. More specifically, accuracy of measurements is increased in the spatial domain via the OFDR technology being studied in conjunction with whispering gallery mode biochemical sensing. While temperature measurements are currently investigated with a reported temperature uncertainty of 30mK, this same technology could increase the accuracy of other parameters in biochemical sensing. 

Background: 
Biochemical sensing techniques often have inherent noise within the resultant measurements. This technology that employs Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry helps to reduce thermal drift noise, thus increasing the accuracy of measurements in biochemical applications. 

Additionally, other current techniques in biochemical settings include systems that employ tagging of specimens. With the studied use of this technology with Whispering Gallery Mode Biochemical Sensing, this is a label-free technique. 

Finally, with the reduced noise capabilities of this technology, resulting temperature measurements have shown increased spatial resolution. It is hypothesized that this accuracy would carry over to other parameter measurements. The technique is also capable of calibrating the microcavities used so that lower levels of detection are possible.


Applications: 

• Single virus particle detection 
• Label-free detection 
• General single particle detection

Advantages: 

• Reduced levels of noise
• High accuracy measurements 

Researchers at the University of Arizona have developed a new technique that helps reject scattered daylight from the sky to enhance visibility of satellites and space debris during daylight hours. This technology can improve satellite detection and sensitivity in high background environments. The daytime tracking can be used to monitor and maintain custody of high interest objects during the daytime.

Background:
The difficulty of detecting satellites during the daytime is well documented due to the brightness and color of the sky, as well as high variability. Previous techniques looked to track satellites during the daytime while utilizing spectral differences between satellites and the sky. The technology presented here seeks to maintain variability and provide higher reliability when tracking high interest objects during the day.

Applications:

• Detection and monitoring of satellites and space debris during daylight
• Daylight space-to-ground laser communications
• Moonlight suppression
• Urban astronomy

Advantages:

• Provides an alternative method for tracking objects during daylight hours
• Increases capability and reliability
• Reduces sky noise

Status: issued U.S. patent #10,976,478

This invention is a sanitizer that utilizes UV radiation to sanitize closed rooms. The invention will be able to be programmed and automated to precisely deliver the exact does of UV radiation around the area of interest while also considering safety. The sanitizer will irradiate UV light with multiple beam steering devices to selectively sterilize the different areas in a room. 

Background: 
The appearance of SARS-CoV-2 in 2019, created a pandemic that resulted in 775,431,269 infections, and a total of 7,047,741 deaths worldwide as of May 2024. The pandemic also led to a large demand for deployable sanitization solutions to eliminate, reduce, and control the viral transmission of the virus. Current UV sanitization solutions tend to be non-programmable, static, and fixed. UV sterilizers that are already on the market that utilize UV lightning as a germicide tend to be imprecise, as their UV radiation system only tend to illuminate different areas indiscriminately and non-uniformly.

Given the current UV lightning sanitization solutions that are currently on the market, there is a high need for a new technology that is both portable and automatic. A new technology that could solve the imprecision, uniformity, and mobility problems could improve the rates of sanitization in work environments, schools, and markets, where a high number of occupants is present in a single room.

Applications: 

• Healthcare
• Commerce
• Enclosed room businesses

Advantages: 

• Portable and precise
• Minimal user intervention
• Deliver an exact dose of UV radiation to an area with precision
• Safer UV radiation-based sanitization system compared to existing systems

This invention uses an Angular Spatial Light Modulator (ASLM) in a projection mode, to create a streak camera. With a novel arrangement of illumination and digital micro-mirror devices (DMDs), an "image per angle" system can be created. Angularly sequential images abut one another such that the viewer sees a single continuous image.

Background: 
Some types of 3D image projection systems place one image on one eye, and an angularly differentiated image of the same scene on the other eye simultaneously. The combined images create a 3D "data cube" to define a frame of an image. The inventors have determined numerous systems and methods for projecting images that comprise a data cube, where each image of the cube is projected in a different angular direction.

Applications:

• Streak camera
• 3D projector
• Multi-photon illumination sources for microscopes
• 3D lithography system

Advantages:

• Much higher angular and spatial modulation rates
• Faster than conventional streak cameras

Status: issued U.S. patent #11,950,026

This invention uses a strategic placement of the gain chips, cavity mirrors, and polarization elements to address the thermal management issues and eliminate or mitigate mode hopping issues. With the novel architecture, the lasers can be stabilized to provide mode-hop free operation with a narrow line-width of 10 MHz, thus improving the overall efficiency of such systems.

Background: 
A major technical challenge in high-power VECSELs is thermal management. The heat dissipated in small volume/area of the semiconductor device must be removed with minimum temperature rise and can require a complex, costly and bulky solution. One approach to manage heat dissipation is to use multiple VECSEL devices in the laser resonator to achieve higher output powers, so that heat dissipation is distributed among multiple devices. However, such multi-device VECSEL configurations suffer from longitudinal mode hopping and standing wave problems. Mode hopping issues can also occur in a single-device VECSEL configuration, where the gain chip is placed at the cavity fold. The invention addresses the thermal management issues and eliminate or mitigate mode hopping issues.

Advantages:

• Good thermal management
• Mode-hopping mitigated
• Narrow line-width
• High power

Applications:

• Guide stars for telescopes
• Adaptive optics
• Optical pumping
• Satellite communications

Status: issued U.S. patent #11,962,127

This invention is a thin wire filament that can produce polarized thermal emission when heated. Using commercial off the shelf wire-grid elements, a polarized thermal source with an extended spatial profile can be fabricated. Such a well-characterized polarized source in the thermal infrared can be used for the verification, validation, and in-flight calibration of airborne and space-based thermal polarimeters.

Background: 
Traditional calibration technologies for polarimeters use either a Sodium light source or a standard quartz crystal designed for the specific application. 

Applications: 

• Defense and aerospace
• Mobile communications networks
• Geographic Information Systems
• Engineering

Advantages: 

• High level of consistency
• Uses commercial off the shelf elements
• Can be used in a variety of applications