DESIGN OF OPTIMAL BINARY PHASE AND AMPLITUDE FILTERS FOR MAXIMIZATION OF CORRELATION PEAK SHARPNESS

Current binary phase filters used for optical correlation are usually assumed to have uniform amplitude transmission. Here a new type of filter is studied, the binary phase and amplitude filter. If binary phase values of 0 and pi are assumed, the amplitude transmittance values of this type of filter may be optimized to maximize the peak sharpness. For a polarization-encoded binary phase filter this can be translated into optimization of the rotation angle of the output polarizer following the filter spatial light modulator. An analytic expression is presented for the optimum polarizer angle and thus for the optimum binary phase and amplitude filter design.