A Low-Cost White-Light Optical Processor for the Undergraduate Optics Laboratory

Techniques of white-light optical signal processing are coupled with a relatively unsophisticated system featuring low cost, portability, and high processing power-to-cost ratio. The low-cost white-light optical processor (LCP) offers educators and businesses a powerful teaching aid while providing a system capable of optical processing usually associated with complex optical systems. Experimental results are provided for four processing techniques applied to the system. The methods applied are: scanning optical correlation and convolution, color schlieren optical processing, processing of bubble chamber event photographs, and density pseudocolor encoding. A full list of system equipment and details of the system construction are included. Emphasis is on the processing power available for low cost, making this a tool to be utilized in undergraduate optics laboratory courses.