Niamh Fitzgerald

PhD Student (Optical Design for Mobile Imaging Devices)

Contact Information National University of Ireland, Galway Phone: +353-91-492984 extn 2984  Fax: +353-91-495529 email: n.fitzgerald1@nuigalway.ie

RESEARCH

Mobile imaging devices are a commonplace in everyday life, both personal and professional. The development of such devices is driven by the consumer market, which demands the devices to be smaller with more advanced imaging systems. These imaging systems typically have a small f-number (f/1.7 – f/2.8) with few elements in a limited design space. The degrees of freedom associated with lens design has been increased with the developing field of free form optics and plastic moulding elements.

With the increase of the number of cameras in consumer devices, dedicated cameras are becoming common for tasks such as user authentication. Positioning an object such as the iris with respect the best focus of the camera is a challenge as fast optical systems have a shallow depth of field. My research involves designing optical systems for consumer-based mobile imaging devices that use optical design to extend the depth of field.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Consumer imaging
• Optical design
• Aberration theory
• Extended depth-of-field
• Smartphone optics

PUBLICATIONS

1. Fitzgerald, N. M., Dainty, J. C., and Goncharov, A. V., "Extending the depth of field with chromatic aberration for dual-wavelength iris imaging," Optics Express 25(24) (2017)
2. N. Fitzgerald, C. Dainty and A. V. Goncharov,"Extending the depth of field in a fixed focus lens using axial colour," Proc. SPIE 10590, 1059034 (2017)