Noise in off-axis type holograms including reconstruction and CCD camera parameters

Phase and amplitude images as contained in digital holograms are commonly extracted via a process called reconstruction. Expressions for the expected noise in these images have been given in the past by several authors; however, the effect of the actual reconstruction process has not been fully appreciated. By starting with the Quantum Mechanical intensity distribution of the off-axis type interference pattern, then building the digital hologram on an electron-by-electron base while simultaneously reconstructing the phase/amplitude images and evaluating their noise levels, an expression is derived that consistently describes the noise in simulated and experimental phase/amplitude images and contains the reconstruction parameters. Because of the necessity to discretize the intensity distribution function, the digitization effects of an ideal CCD camera had to be included. Subsequently, this allowed a comparison between real and simulated holograms which then led to a comparison between the performance of an ideal CCD camera versus a real device. It was concluded that significant improvement of the phase and amplitude noise may be obtained if CCD cameras were optimized for digitizing intensity distributions at low sampling rates. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.