Polarization-Based Angle Sensitive Pixels for Light Field Image Sensors With High Spatio-Angular Resolution

This paper presents a new angle sensitive pixel design for use in light field image sensors. This new pixel, referred to as the macro-pixel, is comprised of seven sub-pixels, and can determine the light angles in the range from -45° to +45°. The range of detectable angles is only limited by the presence of routing metals in the vicinity of the pixels. Each macro-pixel captures incident light angle through the aid of sub-wavelength metallic structures at its focal plane. Unlike previous designs that needed a large number of sub-pixels to determine a limited range of the incident angles, the presented design requires only half as many sub-pixels while offering a comparatively large angle detection range.