Diffractive Optics Produce Pseudoscopic Images

Physicists at Universidade Estadual de Campinas in Brazil have generated pseudoscopic images using a pair of diffractive optical elements and a slit. They suggest that the findings, which they reported in the Nov. 18 Optics Express, indicate that such systems may be used to increase the aperture of an optical system.

In their experiments, the researchers employed 533-lines-per-millimeter plastic holographic gratings, which they set approximately 600 mm apart with an ~0.7-mm-wide black paper slit between them. To demonstrate the technique, they produced 240 x 320-pixel images of three filament lamps and of a 50-W halogen lamp with a parabolic reflector.