Fresnel incoherent correlation holography (FINCH) records holograms under incoherent illumination. FINCH was implemented with two focal length diffractive lenses on a spatial light modulator (SLM). Improved image resolution over previous single lens systems and at wider bandwidths was observed. For a given image magnification and light source bandwidth, FINCH with two lenses of close focal lengths yields a better hologram in comparison to a single diffractive lens FINCH. Three techniques of lens multiplexing on the SLM were tested and the best method was randomly and uniformly distributing the two lenses. The improved quality of the hologram results from a reduced optical path difference of the interfering beams and increased efficiency.

We present a new lensless incoherent holographic system operating in a synthetic aperture mode. Spatial resolution exceeding the Rayleigh limit of the system is obtained by tiling digitally several Fresnel holographic elements into a complete Fresnel hologram of the observed object. Each element is acquired by the limited-aperture system from different point of view. This method is demonstrated experimentally by combining three holographic elements recorded with white light illumination which is emitted from a binary grating.

Methods of generating multiple viewpoint projection holograms of three-dimensional (3-D) realistic objects illuminated by incoherent white light are reviewed in this paper. Using these methods, it is possible to obtain holograms with a simple digital camera, operating in regular light conditions. Thus, most disadvantages characterizing conventional digital holography, namely the need for a powerful, highly coherent laser and extreme stability of the optical system, are avoided. The proposed holographic processes are composed of two stages. In the first stage, regular intensity-based images of the 3-D scene are captured from multiple points of view by a simple digital camera. In the second stage, the acquired projections are digitally processed to yield the complex digital hologram of the 3-D scene, where no interference is involved in the process. For highly reflecting 3-D objects, the resulting hologram is equivalent to an optical hologram of the objects recorded from the central point of view. We first review various methods to acquire the multiple viewpoint projections. These include the use of a microlens array and a macrolens array, as well as digitally generated projections that are not acquired optically. Next, we show how to digitally process the acquired projections to Fourier, Fresnel, and image holograms. Additionally, to obtain certain advantages over the known types of holograms, the proposed hybrid optical-digital process can yield novel types of holograms such as the modified Fresnel hologram and the protected correlation hologram. The prospective goal of these methods is to facilitate the design of a simple and portable digital holographic camera that can be useful for a variety of practical applications, including 3-D video acquisition and various types of biomedical imaging. We review several of these applications to signify the advantages of multiple viewpoint projection holography.

Synthetic aperture with Fresnel elements (SAFE) is an incoherent holographic imaging system in which the complete hologram is a mosaic of several holograms captured from different points of view. In this paper we investigate a new scheme of SAFE which may be used as a basis for designing a new type of synthetic aperture telescopes. Laboratory in-door experiments may provide the proof of concept for such a new design.

An optimal setup in the sense of imaging resolution for the Fresnel incoherent correlation holography (FINCH) system is proposed and analyzed. Experimental results of the proposed setup in reflection mode suffer from low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) due to a granular noise. SNR improvement is achieved by two methods that rely on increasing the initial amount of phase-shifted recorded holograms. In the first method, we average over several independent complex-valued digital holograms obtained by recording different sets of three digital phase-shifted holograms. In the second method, the least-squares solution for solving a system of an overdetermined set of linear equations is approximated by utilizing the Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse. These methods improve the resolution of the reconstructed image due to their ability to reveal fine and weak details of the observed object.