Micro-optics and megapixels

New sampling and measurement methods are proposed for spectrometers and imagers that are shrinking the size and boosting the performance of optical devices for several applications. Costs are reduced because less plastic, glass, and metal is used in each instrument and because smaller components are easier to incorporate in automated manufacturing processes. Emerging demands for compact instruments include low-profile infrared goggles, low-power ground sensor arrays, integrated sensors, and biomedical devices. It is believed that compressive sampling implements image and spectral compression in the measurement layer and assumes advanced signal inference algorithms in post-detection processing. Operators need to have high quality micro-optics operating near the diffraction limit and high fidelity nonlinear image estimation algorithms to make multichannel sampling work.