Modulating phase via rotation for optical encoding based on correlated photon imaging

Abstract

Correlated photon imaging using a novel phase modulation strategy is proposed for optical encoding. Only few pixels guided by modulation pattern (i.e., some superposed arbitrarily positioned circumferences) are selected from the pre-generated random phase-only mask, and positions of selected pixels are rotated for the generation of a new phase-only mask. Since great space savings, i.e., larger than 60.0%, are achieved for the storage or transmission, the designed optical encoding system is sufficiently efficient. Modulation patterns are generated via superposition of different arbitrarily positioned circumferences, which guarantees system security. It is illustrated that the phase modulation strategy is simple and flexible to enable real application of the proposed optical encoding system. The proposed method can provide a promising alternative for exploring applications of correlated photon imaging.