Wang-Ta HSIEH^1,2, Ming-Kuei KUO^1,2, Hon Fai YAU³, and Chi-Ching CHANG^4*

¹School of Defense Science, National Defense University, Tashi, Taoyuan 33509, Taiwan, R.O.C.
²Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, National Defense University, Tashi, Taoyuan 33509, Taiwan, R.O.C.
³Department of Optics and Photonics, National Central University, Jhongli, Taoyuan 32001, Taiwan, R.O.C.
⁴Institute of Electro-Optical Engineering, Ming Dao University, Peetow, Changhua 52345, Taiwan, R.O.C.

(Received July 15, 2008; Accepted January 15, 2009)

This work presents a simple approach for arbitrary phase-step digital holography using two holograms without ambiguity. Using this approach, a magnitude-contrast image is reconstructed without dc term and twin-image blurring, but the phase-contrast image is filled with phase distortion. Computer simulations are carried out to verify the proposed approach, and optical experiments are performed to validate it. The advantages, benefits and limitations of the proposed method compared to conventional two-step phase-shifting methods are also discussed herein.

Key words: digital holography, arbitrary phase-step, wavefront reconstruction, twin-image blurring

^*E-mail address: chichang@mdu.edu.tw