Fourier Holography

Sahand Noorizadeh
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Portland State University Portland, Oregon 97201 Email: sahand.noorizadeh@gmail.com

AbstractIn this paper the limitations of direct imaging and the need for holography is explained. The fundamental concept of holography is presented and two types of Fourier holography techniques with and without lens are discussed in detail with mathematical derivations. Furthermore, a brief comparison of the available recording media and their limitations are outlined. Lastly, an application of the Fourier holography in the biomedical microscopy is explored.

the means of interference, the wavelength of the light source needs to be stable and coherent. Assuming two waves a(x, y) and A(x, y) represented by their phasor, their interference (superposition) is given by Eq. 1 and the intensity of their interference is given by Eq. 2 which is the magnitude squared of the amplitude interference function. B(x, y) = |a(x, y)| ei(x,y) + |A(x, y)| ei(x,y) I(B)=|a(x, y)|2 + |A(x, y)|2 + 2|a(x, y)||A(x, y)| cos[(x, y) (x, y)] (1)

I. I NTRODUCTION All the available optical recording media such as lm or CCD are only capable of recording the intensity of the light. The intensity being a time-averaged quantity does not carry any phase information. Rather it is proportional to the power of the optical wave incident on the recording medium from which only the amplitude can be obtained. A direct recorded image of an object only has information about the amplitude of the light wave received from the object and the phase information is lost. In most practical applications of optics, it is the phase information that is of interest. The phase of a traveling wave with wavelength is proportional to the distance traveled by the wave. As shown in Figure 1, two identical waves originated from the same point, traveling in two different directions, and observed at the distance x have two different amplitudes. If multiple observations of the amplitude of the two waves at point x are made over a long period of time as the waves travel and then these values are averaged, the resulting amplitude values for both points on the observation line would be the same. That is the reason why the phase information is lost in the intensity measurements.

(2)

The interference allows the phase difference of the waves to be preserved. If the phase of one of the interfered waves is known, the phase of the other wave can be found. In holography, the behavior of one of the two waves is known (the reference wave) and the other is the scattered wave from a subject whose bahavior will be measured. The options of arrangement of the recording setup (i.e. position of the object with respect to the recording medium and the reference wave) has led to a wide range of classes of holography. Fore example, depending on the distance of the object from the recording medium, the propagation of light waves from the object could be best characterized by the Fresnel (near-eld) propagation law or by the Fraunhofer (far-eld) propagation law. The different effects of each of the preceding arrangements on the interference pattern at the recording plane has been the cause of different classication of holography systems. Another type of holography is dened by the angle of illumination: on-axis and off-axis. One other type of holography that is the subject of the remaining of this paper is Fourier holography. II. F OURIER H OLOGRAPHY In Fourier holography, the Fourier transform (FT) of the objects amplitude transmittance is recorded. To achieve this, there are two methods used: a) Fourier Transform Holography with Lens and b) Lens-Less Fourier Holography. A. Fourier Transform Hologram with Lens In the rst method, a lens is used to place the object and the reference wave at the back focal plane of the lens and record the FT of the interference of the the reference and the objects transmittance function. Figure 2 shows a setup of a FT hologram where the object transmittance function O(x, y)

o x
Fig. 1. Phase vs. traveling distance of a wave.

Holography is a method of recording optical interference of light from an object with a reference light to be able to reconstruct the image of the recorded object. Until the invention of coherent light sources such as laser, holography was not entirely feasible and practical because in order to be able to form well-dened and measurable fringe patterns by

is illuminated by a coherent plane wave which is also incident on a smaller lens, L0, separated by its focal length from the object plane to convert the incident plane wave into a point source, (x a, y b), that is located at point (a, b) on the (x, y) plane. The lens L1 performs the FT operation. The eld

and a reference point source is located on the same plane d unit distance away from the recording medium at point (a, b) of the object plane as the object. It is necessary that the reference wave and the object be on the same plane.

L1 Illumination Recording Medium z Illumination Recording z Medium

L0

f Fourier Plane

Point Source

Fig. 3.

Lensless Fourier hologram.

Fig. 2.

Fourier holography with lens.

distribution on the (, ) plane is given by Eq. 3. U (fX , fY )= F{O(x, y) + (x a, y b)} = F{O(x, y)} + F{(x a, y b)} = Q(fX , fY ) + ei2(afX +bfY ) (3)

Where Q(fX , fY ) is the FT of O(x, y), fX = /f , fY = /f , and f is the focal length of L1. The recorded intensity is given by Eq. 4. I(fX , fY )=1 + |Q(fX , fY )|2 + Q (fX , fY ) ei2(afX +bfY ) + Q(fX , fY ) ei2(afX +bfY ) (4) The recording of this intensity (whether on a lm or with a CCD) will produce a transmittance function that can be assumed is linearly proportional to the intensity of Eq. 4. Therefore, for reconstructing the image of the object, a plane wave of the same wavelength can be used to illuminate this transmittance function which will in turn generate a wavefront, W whose complex amplitude immediately passed the transparency (the zero propagation length) is the same as the transmittance function. In the Fourier transform of W (done either numerically using a computer or with a lens) the rst two terms in Eq. 4 will produce zero-order (DC) terms and the last two terms will reproduce two inverted images of the original object centered at (a, b) and (a, b). The images are inverted because a double FT had to be performed and the Fourier transform of the Fourier transform of a function returns the inverted-domain version of that function: F{F{f (x)}} = f (x). B. Lensless Fourier Hologram In the previous section, the Fourier transforming properties of the lens were exploited to perform the FT operation. However it is possible to FT the transmittance function of an object without employing a lens. Figure 3 shows a holography system in which the object is illuminated with a plane wave

Since the objects illumination is a plane wave, the amplitude of the light distribution to the immediate right hand side of the object is simply the transmittance function of the object. The distance d is chosen so that the propagation of the light from the object can be expressed by Fresnel diffraction given by Eq 6. Where the rst term is constant phase factor, the second term is a quadratic phase exponential, and the integral is the FT of the product of the object transmittance function O(x, y) and a quadratic phase exponential. Ui (, )= eikd ik (2 +2 ) e 2d id
2 2 ik 2d ( + )

=Ce

O(x, y)e 2d (x

ik

+y 2 ) ik/d(x+y)

dxdy (5) (6)

Foe (fX , fY );

Eq. 6 is the compact form of Eq. 5 where Foe (fX , fY ) = 2 2 ik F{O(x, y) e 2d (x +y ) }, fX = /d, and fY = /d. From the reference point source a spherical wave propagates towards the (, ) plane. The propagation of this wave is given by Eq. 7. Ur (, )= e 2d ( =e
ik 2

+ 2 )

eik/d(a+b) ei2(fX a+fY b) (7)

2 2 ik 2d ( + )

The eld distribution at the holograms plane is the superposition of the diffracted object eld and the reference wave and the intensity of this superposition is given by Eq. 8.
I(fX , fY )=ADC + C Foe ei2(fX a+fY b) i2(fX a+fY b) + C Foe e

(8)

Where ADC is the sum of all zero-order terms. The quadratic 2 2 ik phase factor at the hologram plane e 2d ( + ) , that was common in both Ur and Ui , was cancelled in the intensity. Eq. 8 is very similar to Eq. 4 except that there is an additional constant phase factor which can be dropped and the image contains a quadratic phase exponential. In reconstructing the original object, a plane wave can be used as in the Fourier hologram with lens but a lens will be

required to remove the quadratic phase exponential. A more common way is to reconstruct with a point source similar to the one used for the reference in the recording process which will make the virtual reconstructed image coincide with the object. III. R ECORDING M EDIUM The recording medium mentioned so far was a generic term. The common options are lm and charged coupled device sensors (CCD). Films require to be developed to be used as transparency for reconstruction of the image of the object. The process of preparing the lm for reconstruction is often tedious and time-consuming. This can be specially a disadvantage if an application requires multiple and fast exposures. Also the reconstruction process is a manual and analog process which complicates data processing. The advantage of lms are their very high angular resolution compared to CCDs. A CCD is a two-dimensional array of N M square sensors and they also can only record the intensity. The resolution of CCD sensors is a function of the array size and the pixel dimension. Each pixel samples the intensity in its coverage area. For a xed boundary, the more pixels the higher the sampling rate. Therefore, smaller pixels are desirable. The limiting resolution of the CCD camera is determined by its Nyquist limit. This is dened as being one half of the sampling frequency (i.e. # pixels/mm). The angle between the reference beam and the object beam in the holographic setup is limited because the holographic fringe structures in the hologram plane need to be sampled by the CCD sensor. The sampling theorem requires that the angle between the object beam and the reference beam at any point of the CCD sensor be limited in such a way that the microinterference fringe spacing is larger than double the pixel size [1]. The use of CCD allows the numerical reconstruction using computers. This provides easy data processing capability such as ltering. Also, the holograms of different object states in holographic interferometry can be reconstructed with different wavelengths and still interfere numerically. This is of particular interest for multiple-wavelength techniques that are used for holographic contouring [2]. IV. A N A PPLICATION OF F OURIER H OLOGRAPHY The digital Fourier hologram shown in Figure 4 can be used to measure the angular spectrum of the elastically scattered light at many spatial locations covering a large eld of view based on a single capture or a few image captures [3]. In this hologram, the beam splitter B1 splits the laser beam and polarizes it using P 1 for a uniform illumination that is applied to the sample at an angle in as reected by the mirror M 1. Since the samples are placed inside a medium with a different index of refraction, there will be a change in the angles of entrance and exit beam from the sample container. Lens L1 is a focal length (of L1) away from the sample to Fourier transform the backscattered light from the sample and L2 and L3 transfer the image of this spectrum to the CCD

Fig. 4. Schematic of the setup for the spatially resolved Fourier holographic light scattering angular spectroscopy[3].

sensor. The other split beam from B1 is expanded by the telescopic system T and routed by the mirror M 3 to interfere with the image of the spectrum of backscattered light from the sample at B2 to form a holographic interference pattern at the CCD plane. This reference beam is superimposed with the image of the spectrum at an angle of 2.3 so that the twin images become separable during reconstruction. The complex spectrum obtained by lens L1 is proportional to the size of the scatterers and the refractive index of their container. In the Fourier plane there is a one-to-one correspondence between spatial position and scattering angle [4]. The holographic technique provides a reference beam to interfere with this spectrum so that it is the interference that is recorded not the spectrum itself. This way, very small scattering angles beyond the spatial resolution limits of the CCD can be encoded into the interference pattern and then numerically be reconstructed. The analysis of the spectrum of the backscattered light waves can reveal information about the features of the sample and this method has been used on biological samples to deduce morphological information at all points in the eld of view. Combining the Mie or other scattering theories will extract scatterer sizes and refractive index contrasts [3]. R EFERENCES
[1] U. Schnars, Direct phase determination in hologram interferometry with use of digitally recorded holograms, J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 11, 20112015 (1994). [2] Christoph Wagner, Snke Seebacher, Wolfgang Osten, and Werner Jptner, Digital Recording and Numerical Reconstruction of Lensless Fourier Holograms in Optical Metrology, Appl. Opt. 38, 4812-4820 (1999). [3] Sergey A. Alexandrov, Timothy R. Hillman, and David D. Sampson, Spatially resolved Fourier holographic light scattering angular spectroscopy, Opt. Lett. 30, 3305-3307 (2005). [4] M. T. Valentine, A. K. Popp, D. A. Weitz, and P. D. Kaplan, Microscopebased static light-scattering instrument, Opt. Lett. 26, 890-892 (2001)