Device and method for optically encoding an image

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10776679-B2
Application number	US-201615746916-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 5, 2016
Priority date	Jul 23, 2015
Publication date	Sep 15, 2020
Grant date	Sep 15, 2020

Abstract

According to a first aspect, the present description relates to a device for optically encoding an image, which device is intended to be observed in at least one first spectral band of observation. The encoding device comprises a supporting structure and a set of metal-dielectric-metal plasmonic antennae formed on said supporting structure, each plasmonic antenna being resonant at at least one wavelength comprised in said first spectral band of observation, the plasmonic antennae being arranged spatially on the supporting structure in such a way as to form at least one first spatial encoding of said image in said first spectral band of observation.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An optical encoding device of an image formed of pixels each defined by a position and at least one value, the image comprising at least two pixels of different values, the encoding device being intended to be observed in at least a first spectral band of observation and comprising:
a supporting structure; and
a set of plasmonic nanoantennas of the metal-dielectric-metal type formed on said supporting structure, wherein:
each plasmonic nanoantenna is resonant to at least one wavelength comprised in said first spectral band of observation,
the plasmonic nanoantennas are arranged spatially on the supporting structure so that at one pixel of the image, a subset of one or more plasmonic nanoantenna(s) is associated, whose optical response according to a polarization and in a spectral band comprised in the first spectral band of observation corresponds to the value of said pixel, the set of plasmonic nanoantennas thus forming at least a first spatial coding of said image in said first spectral band of observation.

2. The encoding device according to claim 1 , wherein at least a first spatial encoding comprises a grayscale coding, said optical response of a subset of one or more plasmonic nanoantenna(s) associated with a pixel having a relative intensity in a scale of intensities corresponding to a pixel value defined by a gray level in a scale of gray levels.

3. The encoding device according to claim 1 , in which a pixel of the image having at least a first and a second value, a subset of nanoantennas is associated with each pixel of the image, wherein said subset of nanoantennas has, according to a given polarization, at least a first and a second optical responses respectively in a first and second spectral bands comprised in the first spectral band of observation, the first and second optical responses corresponding to the first and second values of the pixel, thus forming a spatial color coding of the image in said first spectral band of observation.

4. The encoding device according to claim 1 , wherein:
the set of plasmonic nanoantennas comprises resonant plasmonic nanoantennas in a first spectral band of observation and resonant plasmonic nanoantennas in a second spectral band, and
the resonant plasmonic nanoantennas in the first spectral band are arranged spatially on the substrate so as to form a first spatial encoding of a first image, observable in the first spectral band of observation, and the resonant plasmonic nanoantennas in the second spectral band are arranged spatially on the substrate so as to form a second spatial encoding of a second image, observable in the second spectral band of observation.

5. The encoding device according to claim 1 , wherein:
the set of plasmonic nanoantennas comprises resonant plasmonic nanoantennas according to a first polarization and resonant plasmonic nanoantennas according to a second polarization, and
the resonant plasmonic nanoantennas according to the first polarization are arranged spatially on the substrate in such a way as to form a first spatial encoding of a first image, observable in said first spectral band of observation according to the first polarization, and the resonant plasmonic nanoantennas according to the second polarization are arranged spatially on the substrate so as to form a second spatial encoding of a second image, observable in said first spectral band of observation according to the second polarization.

6. The encoding device according to claim 1 , wherein the plasmonic nanoantennas are distributed in elementary cells of similar shapes and dimensions, each elementary cell comprising a subset of one or more plasmonic nanoantennas having an optical response corresponding to a value of one pixel of the image.

7. The encoding device according to claim 6 , wherein the plasmonic antennas are distributed according to first elementary cells of similar shapes and dimensions, each of the first elementary cells comprising a subset of one or more plasmonic nanoantenna(s) presenting an optical response in a first spectral band of observation corresponding to a value of one pixel of a first image, and wherein the first elementary cells are distributed in second elementary cells of similar shapes and dimensions, each of the second elemental cells comprising a subset of one or more plasmonic nanoantenna(s) having an optical response in a second spectral band of observation corresponding to a value of one pixel of a second image.

8. The encoding device according to claim 1 , wherein the plasmonic nanoantennas are spatially distributed on the substrate to encode in a first spectral band of observation and according to a given polarization, at least a first image forming a QR code.

9. The encoding device according to claim 1 , wherein the plasmonic nanoantennas are spatially arranged on the substrate to encode in a first spectral band of observation and according to a given polarization, at least a first image forming a recognizable pattern.

10. The encoding device according to claim 1 , wherein all the plasmonic nanoantennas comprise:
a first continuous metal layer;
a second continuous layer of dielectric material formed on the first continuous metal layer; and
a third metal layer arranged on the second continuous dielectric material layer and structured to locally form metal-dielectric-metal stacks (MDM i ) forming said plasmonic nanoantennas.

11. The encoding device according to claim 10 , further comprising a substrate forming the supporting structure on which is deposited the first continuous metal layer.

12. The encoding device according to claim 10 , wherein the supporting structure is formed by the first continuous metal layer or by the second layer of dielectric material.

13. A secured object comprising:
an encoding device of an image formed of pixels each defined by a position and at least one value, the image comprising at least two pixels of different values, the encoding device being configured to be observed in at least a first spectral band of observation and comprising:
a supporting structure, and
a set of plasmonic nanoantennas of the metal-dielectric-metal type formed on said supporting structure, wherein:
each plasmonic nanoantenna is resonant to at least one wavelength comprised in said first spectral band of observation,
the plasmonic nanoantennas are arranged spatially on the supporting structure so that at one pixel of the image, a subset of one or more plasmonic nanoantenna(s) is associated, whose optical response according to a polarization and in a spectral band comprised in the first spectral band of observation corresponds to the value of said pixel, the set of plasmonic nanoantennas thus forming at least a first spatial coding of said image in said first spectral band of observation.

14. An encoding method in at least a first spectral band of observation of at least one image, the method being performed by an encoding device of an image formed of pixels each defined by a position and at least one value, the image comprising at least two pixels of different values, the encoding device being configured to be observed in at least a first spectral band of observation and comprising:
a supporting structure, and
a set of plasmonic nanoantennas of the metal-dielectric-metal type formed on said supporting structure, wherein:
each plasmonic nanoantenna is resonant to at least one wavelength comprised in said first spectral band of observation,

the plasmonic nanoantennas are arranged spatially on the supporting structure so that at one pixel of the image, a subset of one or more plasmonic nanoantenna(s) is associate

Assignees

• Office National Detudes Rech Aerospatiales
• Office National Detudes Et De Rech Aerospatiales Onera

Inventors

• Bouchon Patrick
• Jaeck Julien
• Makhsiyan Mathilde
• Haïdar Riad

Classifications

• G06K19/0614

  the marking being selective to wavelength, e.g. color barcode or barcodes only visible under UV or IR (methods or arrangements for sensing record carriers using a selected wavelength, see G06K7/12) · CPC title

• G06K19/06037 Primary

  multi-dimensional coding · CPC title

• G06K19/06028

  using bar codes · CPC title

• G02B5/008

  Surface plasmon devices (diffractive gratings with a pitch less than or comparable to the wavelength G02B5/1809; surface plasmons in integrated optics G02B6/1226; optical analysis of materials by means of surface plasmons G01N21/553) · CPC title

• B42D25/36 Primary

  comprising special materials · CPC title