Bio-Inspired Sensing and Imaging of Polarization Information in Nature

Our unaided eyes can detect two of the characteristics of image-forming visible light from a scene, namely, the intensity and the wavelength, which can then be encoded into perceptual qualities of brightness and color. Our eyes, however, are effectively blind to the third characteristic of light, its polarization. It is well known, however, that several species of animals have visual systems capable of detecting lights polarization and using the information so extracted. Understanding the biophysical mechanism behind the polarization vision and reverse engineering its functionality and utility leads to exciting novel methods and techniques in sensing and imaging with various applications. Motivated and inspired by the features of polarization-sensitive visual systems in nature, in our group we have been developing various man-made, non-invasive imaging methodologies, sensing schemes, camera systems, and visualization and display schemes that have shown exciting and that have shown exciting and promising outcomes with useful applications in system design.