Phase map retrieval in digital holography: avoiding the undersampling effect by a lateral shear approach

In digital holography (DH) the numerical reconstruction of the whole wavefront allows one to extract the wrapped phase map mod, 2 pi. It can occur that the reconstructed wrapped phase map in the image plane is undersampled because of the limited pixel size in that plane. In such a case the phase distribution cannot be retrieved correctly by the usual unwrapping procedures. We show that the use of the digital lateral-shearing interferometry approach in DH provides the correct reconstruction of the phase map in the image plane, even in extreme cases where the phase profile changes very rapidly. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the method in a particular case where the profile of a highly curved silicon microelectromechanical system membrane has to be reconstructed. (c) 2007 Optical Society of America.