A descriptive account of both classical and hologram interferometry shows many common features. In each, the position of fringe localization is found by a similar ray construction and the fringe visibility is derived from the amplitude distribution in a diffraction pattern near focus.
IntroductionThe van Cittert-Zernike theorem [1] leads to the useful result that the theory of fringe visibility in an interferometer with an extended source is the same as the theory of diffraction of coherent radiation. Since the recent technique of hologram interferometry [2, 3] is an example of the diffraction and interference of coherent waves, it might be expected to have a theory equivalent to that of classical interferometry. The descriptive treatment given here points out this equivalence and shows that the results obtained by other, more mathematical theories [4][5][6] can be derived, or at least made plausible, by a simple physical argument.