Fiber optic taper has been used more and more widely as a relay optical component in the integrated taper assembly image intensified sensors for military and medical imaging application. In this paper, the transmission characteristic of energy in the taper is analyzed, and following the generalized definition of the modulation transfer function for sampled imaging system, a spatial averaged impulse response and a corresponding MTF component that are inherent in the sampling process of taper are deduced, and the mathematical model for evaluating the modulation transfer function of fiber optic taper is built. Finally, the dynamic and static modulation transfer function curves simulated by computer have been exhibited.
As a relay optical component, fiber optic taper has become more important and more widely used in the integrated taper assembly image intensified sensors for military and medical imaging application. However, the method for evaluating the quality of output images from the fiber optic taper is few. In this article, the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) is introduced and measured to evaluate the image quality of fiber optic taper. Because fiber optic taper is of a mosaic array architecture, there are some new problems need to be resolved in defining MTF of it. And there also should be some special requirements in MTF measurement. Two methods including edge scanning and point imaging analyzing are introduced in measuring MTF of fiber optic taper, in which the incident light, scanning step and scanning range are specially limited. Experiments show that the results of the measurements consist with the theoretical analysis simulated by computer. And the spatial averaged MTF of fiber optic taper has been gotten by two means. It is concluded that the MTF value measured by point imaging is always some higher than measured by edge scanning, because the point imaging is more weakly effected by the fiber arrangement in taper.
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