Conventional double-random phase encoding is vulnerable to a chosen or known plaintext attack owing to the linearity of the system. We introduce a technique to break down this linearity with an undercover amplitude modulation in the encryption scheme. As an additional key, this operation can significantly enhance the security of the system. A series of computer simulations have shown the effectiveness of this method and its resistance against the known plaintext attack. The design and parameter choice of the amplitude modulator is also discussed.

A simple wave-front reconstruction method by generalized phase-shifting interferometry (PSI) with arbitrary unknown phase shift between 0 and π for two adjacent frames is proposed. In this method the unknown phase shifts are extracted by a noniterative algorithm with the use of the interferograms and the intensities of object and reference waves, and then the original object field can be further obtained. This method is applicable for generalized PSI of any frame number N (N⩾2) and for both the amplitude and phase objects. Its effectiveness and accuracy are verified by both the computer simulations and optical experiments.

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A direct phase shift extraction and wavefront reconstruction method in two-step generalized phase-shifting interferometry (GPSI) with arbitrary unknown phase shift is proposed. In this method the unknown phase shift α can be extracted by a determinate formula directly without iteration or additional judgment of its correct value from two or more phase shift solutions as necessary before. By an appropriate formula of GPSI the complex object field in the recording plane can be calculated and then the object wavefront in the original object plane obtained. This method is applicable for GPSI of any frame number K≥2 and for both the amplitude and phase objects. Computer simulations have shown that the phase shift extraction errors are below 0.01 rad in a wide range of 0.4 rad<α<2.6 rad and the computation time is greatly reduced by a factor of about 20 compared with the previous method. The effectiveness and accuracy of this method are also verified by optical experiments.

A novel fast convergent algorithm to extract arbitrary unknown phase shifts in generalized phase-shifting interferometry (PSI) is proposed and verified by a series of computer simulations. In this algorithm an error function is introduced and then the unknown phase shifts are found by an iterative tangent approach. In combination with the statistical method, this algorithm can give the most exact results in the fewest iteration steps. It can be used for generalized PSI of arbitrary frames for both smooth and diffusing objects and can usually reach the exact phase shifts with only four or five iterations for three- or four-frame PSI.