Enhanced Single-Beam Multiple-Intensity Phase Retrieval Using Holographic Illumination

Abstract

Single-beam multiple-intensity iterative phase retrieval is a high-precision and lens-free computational imaging method, which reconstructs the complex-valued distribution of the object from a volume of axially captured diffraction intensities using the post-processing algorithm. However, for the object with slowly-varying waves, the method may encounter the problem of convergence stagnation since the lack of diversity between the captured intensity patterns. In this paper, a novel technique to enhance phase retrieval using holographic illumination is proposed. One special computer-generated hologram is designed, which can generate multiple significantly different images at the required distances. The incident plane wave is firstly modulated by the hologram, and then the exit wave is used to illuminate the object. Benefitting from this holographic illumination, remarkable intensity changes in the given detector planes can be produced, which is conducive to fast and high-accuracy reconstruction. Simulation and optical experiments are performed to verify the feasibility of the proposed method.