Theoretical study of the lateral displacement of random fields at interfaces.

The lateral displacement of a totally reflected light beam from the position expected by geometrical optics has been known for some time. The effect, known as the Goos-Hänchen shift, may be understood in terms of the phase changes acquired upon reflection at the interface by the plane wave components of the angular spectrum representation of the incident field. In this work, we study the shifts that occur in the reflection of random fields from flat dielectric interfaces.

Design and fabrication of random phase diffusers for extending the depth of focus.

We present a method for designing non-absorbing optical diffusers that, when illuminated by a converging beam, produce a specified intensity distribution along the optical axis. To evaluate the performance of the diffusers in imaging systems we calculate the three-dimensional distribution of the mean intensity in the neighborhood of focus. We find that the diffusers can be used as depth-of-focus extenders.