Review, current status and prospect of researches on information optical imaging (Invited)

To understand, study and optimize optical imaging systems from the viewpoint of information theory has been an important research field of the imaging science since the birth of information theory, accompanied by a series of corresponding progress which has been being achieved. However, due to the ''fixed point-to-point'' mode of image information acquisition from the object plane to the image plane in traditional optical imaging systems, studies on them based on information theory are more meaningful in the theoretical sense while just acting as icing on the cake for optimization and design of practical application systems, which makes substantial breakthroughs in new imaging functions are difficult to be made therein. With breakthroughs in both the modern modulation techniques of light fields and new-concept optical imaging techniques based on the high-order correlation of light fields, currently it has been able to encode the target image by using controllable spatiotemporal fluctuations of light fields during the imaging process. This not only puts forward new demands for understanding and optimizing optical imaging systems from the viewpoint of information theory, but also brings new opportunities for the research field of information optical imaging. This paper will first review the domestic and international development history of information optical imaging during the last half century since the birth of information theory, and then discuss its current research status and potential developing tendency by combining with latest progress in the field of optical imaging.