Dynamic spectral imaging with spectral zooming capability

We report a dynamic spectral imaging system with spectral band zooming and selection capability that can adapt to different application requirements and significantly reduce the size of the captured spectral image data cube. It employs a diffraction grating to disperse the spectral information of the captured image and uses a dynamic spatial filter at the Fourier plane to select the spectral channel and spectral bandwidth for each spectral image. With a limited fixed spectral channel number, it can provide both coarse and fine spectral image viewing and capture. A prototype spectral imaging system with such spectral band zooming and selection features has been constructed. Spectral zooming from 9 to 50 nm resolution has been demonstrated. (C) 2007 Optical Society of America