Fast Method of Recovering Reference-Wave Intensity in Two-Step-Only Quadrature Phase-Shifting Holography

We present a simple yet effective method, without the need for any additional recording of intensity maps or tremendous iterative computations, to recover reference-wave intensity resulting from the complex hologram acquired by quadrature phase-shifting holography. This is achieved by utilizing a certain area of interest in the complex hologram. We select a particular area in the complex hologram where there is negligible diffraction from the test sample to estimate the reference-wave intensity. The calculated intensity value allows us to extract exact phase distribution of the object in the context of two-step-only quadrature phase-shifting holography (TSO-PSH) without the zeroth-order beam and the twin image noise on the reconstruction plane. Computer simulation and experimental results have been performed to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of our proposed method.