Anisotropic crystals based optical differential operation

Optical differential operation is the core principle of optical detection of edge images. Compared with the traditional digital image processing methods, the optical differential operation has high efficiency, simple structure, and needless to consider algorithms and power consumption. An optical differential operation device based on anisotropic crystal is proposed in this paper. Omni-directional edge imaging under multi-angle spectral components is realized by using a customized crystal chip. The scheme is mainly based on the birefringence effect of anisotropic crystal. It needs to separate the left and right circularly polarized component of the beam horizontally, and then filter the linearly polarized light in the middle. The whole device is integrated into a straight optical path. Although it has higher requirements for the thickness of crystal, it is simpler, cheaper and more stable than spin Hall effect and super surface principle. The experimental results also demonstrate that the scheme can be used in quantum observation, biological cell and medicine.