Abstract:
Implementation of the liquid crystal light valve in several coherent optical processing schemes is demonstrated. Experiments were designed to extend conventional techniques to real-time and explore new applications concepts. These are (1) real-time holography for adaptive optics, (2) Doppler imaging using the light valve for coherent detection with a frequency coded reference beam, (3) object recognition and tracking via cross-correlation with Vander Lugt filters, (4) time-average speckle imagery for discrimination of slowly moving objects, and finally (5) range-slice imagery and range-Doppler simulation.