SWIR digital holography and imaging through smoke and flames: unveiling the invisible

Abstract

Since its inception, digital holography has been mainly carried out using visible light but soon various other regions of the electromagnetic spectrum has been fruitfully explored. The Short Wavelength Infrared (SWIR) region, despite its interesting peculiarities and appealing applications in the imaging field, has not yet been fully investigated in Digital Holography (DH). Here we present a compact and robust SWIR DH setup and demonstrate the peculiar and remarkable advantages offered by SWIR radiation for macroscopic object investigation. In particular, we focus our attention to a specific application, previously demonstrated using Long Wavelength IR DH, that is vision through smoke and flames and demonstrate the great potential of SWIR DH in the field of fire rescue.