Novel Light Field Imaging Device with Enhanced Light Collection for Cold Atom Clouds

We present a light field imaging system that captures multiple views of the target object with a single shot. The system also maximizes the total light collection, by accepting a larger solid angle of light than a conventional lens with equivalent depth of field characteristics, and retains high resolution over the target's span. Simulation results demonstrate that this system is capable of single-shot tomography of atom clouds of size O(1mm), reconstructing the 3-dimensional (3D) distribution of atoms and features not accessible from any single view angle in isolation. In particular, for atom clouds used in atom interferometry experiments, the system can reconstruct 3D fringe patterns with size O(100µm). We also demonstrate this system with a prototype. The prototype is used to take images of O(1mm) sized objects, and 3D reconstruction algorithms running on a single-shot image successfully reconstruct O(100µm) features. The prototype also shows that the system can be deployed quickly and cost-effectively in experiments with needs for enhanced light collection or 3D reconstruction.