BusinessForum - Holographic interferometry: A funny thing happened on the way to the Patent Office

摘要

The last quarter of 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of a set of experiments Robert Powell and I performed at the University of Michigan's Institute of Science and Technology that defined the ability to record incoherent optical fields and reconstruct them coherently, forming the basis for double-exposure and time-average holographic interferometry. The following April, we used a hologram as a beamsplitter between the reference and object fields to allow real-time interferometry on diffusely reflecting objects. I have worked in this area for the entire 50 years and find myself thinking back over all that happened in this half century. One area in particular is patents--holographic interferometry was my first patent. Two applications were filed. The first was titled "Wavefront reconstruction" serial no. 503,993 filed on October 23, 1965, with six names: Emmett N. Leith, Juris Upatnieks, Bernard P. Hildebrand, Kenneth A. Haines, Karl A. Stetson, and Robert L. Powell. The second one was titled "Method and apparatus for analyzing structures using wavefront reconstruction," serial no. 514,482 filed on December 17, 1965, with four names: Bernard P. Hildebrand, Kenneth A. Haines, Karl A. Stetson, and Robert L. Powell.