Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

To: zeestephen
By “phase information” I presume you mean something like infrared, visible, ultraviolet, etc.

That's not it. "Phase information" charactises "coherence", as a laser, for example, is a coherent beam of light. This is what allows it to produce interference patterns.

You can shine a laser through a lens, and bounce it off mirrors, and this coherence will be preserved, but CCD's require absorption of photons, and so the information thus recorded is reduced to INTENSITY, as opposed to AMPLITUDE, which preserves or carries "phase information". So a surface of CCDs can never duplicate an optical mirror surface.

This is according to my own understanding, and I stand ready to be corrected, ( but it would take some doing! )

37 posted on 11/10/2017 9:12:17 PM PST by dr_lew (I)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies ]


To: dr_lew
Thanks. That's helpful.

An earlier Comment said that a CCD was like the raw film in a camera - it just “counts” the photons.

It requires a lens to create a photograph.

So, tomorrow, I will be at You Tube watching educational videos about phase information, interference patterns, and amplitude.

38 posted on 11/10/2017 9:42:10 PM PST by zeestephen
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson