Single disperser design for compressive, single-snapshot spectral imaging

Recent theoretical work in “compressed sensing” can be exploited to guide the design of accurate, single-snapshot, static, high-throughput spectral imaging systems. A spectral imager provides a three-dimensional data cube in which the spatial information of the image is complemented by spectral information about each spatial location. In this paper, compressive, single-snapshot spectral imaging is accomplished via a novel static design consisting of a coded input aperture, a single dispersive element and a detector. The proposed “single disperser” design described here mixes spatial and spectral information on the detector by measuring coded projections of the spectral datacube that are induced by the coded input aperture. The single disperser uses fewer optical elements and requires simpler optical alignment than our dual disperser design.1 We discuss the prototype instrument, the reconstruction algorithm used to generate accurate estimates of the spectral datacubes, and associated experimental results.