Method and apparatus for realising a switchable optical aperture

摘要

An incident spatially coherent bundle of light (1) is modulated in amplitude and/or phase and/or polarization and divided into sub-apertures by lens arrays (5,6). The sub-apertures are converted into spherical waves through focussing and collimated onto an object's surface (8) as plane waves by a transformation lens (7) where they are superimposed. An independent claim is also included for a system for implementing a switchable optical aperture.