Suppression of the zero-order term in off-axis digital holography through nonlinear filtering

We present experimental validation of a new reconstruction method for off-axis digital holographic microscopy (DHM). This method effectively suppresses the object autocorrelation, namely, the zero-order term, from holographic data, thereby improving the reconstruction bandwidth of complex wavefronts. The algorithm is based on nonlinear filtering and can be applied to standard DHM setups with realistic recording conditions. We study the robustness of the technique under different experimental configurations, and quantitatively demonstrate its enhancement capabilities on phase signals. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America