Minimum optical energy required for parallel four-step phase-shifting digital holography is evaluated numerically by using photon-counting method. One of the attractive features of parallel phase-shifting digital holography is the instantaneous recording of fast 3D events where only the complex amplitude distribution of an object wave is obtained. The reconstruction is executed by numerical wave propagation such as angular spectrum propagation or Fresnel propagation. Numerical results indicate that required optical energy of an input image with 512 × 512 pixels is about 11 pJ. Under the criteria used in the evaluation, the required optical energy is independent of the image size.

Date Published: 26 November 2012
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 8557, Optical Design and Testing V, 85571W (26 November 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.999886

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8557:
Optical Design and Testing V
Yongtian Wang; Chunlei Du; Hong Hua; Kimio Tatsuno; H. Paul Urbach, Editor(s)