Pablo Etchepareborda

Continuous phase estimation from noisy fringe patterns based on the implicit smoothing splines.

We introduce the algorithm for the direct phase estimation from the single noisy interferometric pattern. The method, named implicit smoothing spline (ISS), can be regarded as a formal generalization of the smoothing spline interpolation for the case when the interpolated data is given implicitly. We derive the necessary equations, discuss the properties of the method and address its application for the direct estimation of the continuous phase in both classical interferometry and digital speckle pattern interferometry (DSPI). The numerical illustrations of the algorithm performance are provided to corroborate the high quality of the results.

Measurement of in-plane displacements using the phase singularities generated by directional wavelet transforms of speckle pattern images.

We present a method to determine micro and nano in-plane displacements based on the phase singularities generated by application of directional wavelet transforms to speckle pattern images. The spatial distribution of the obtained phase singularities by the wavelet transform configures a network, which is characterized by two quasi-orthogonal directions. The displacement value is determined by identifying the intersection points of the network before and after the displacement produced by the tested object. The performance of this method is evaluated using simulated speckle patterns and experimental data. The proposed approach is compared with the optical vortex metrology and digital image correlation methods in terms of performance and noise robustness, and the advantages and limitations associated to each method are also discussed.

Phase-recovery improvement using analytic wavelet transform analysis of a noisy interferogram cepstrum

We evaluate the extension of the exact nonlinear reconstruction technique developed for digital holography to the phase-recovery problems presented by other optical interferometric methods, which use carrier modulation. It is shown that the introduction of an analytic wavelet analysis in the ridge of the cepstrum transformation corresponding to the analyzed interferogram can be closely related to the well-known wavelet analysis of the interferometric intensity. Subsequently, the phase-recovery process is improved. The advantages and limitations of this framework are analyzed and discussed using numerical simulations in singular scalar light fields and in temporal speckle pattern interferometry.

Amplitude and phase retrieval in simultaneous π/2 phase-shifting heterodyne interferometry using the synchrosqueezing transform

This paper presents a method for amplitude and phase retrieval in simultaneous π/2 phase-shifting heterodyne interferometry. The used optical setup admits the introduction of a temporal carrier and simultaneously verifies the two-beam interferometry equation for each intensity signal, which are π/2  rad out of phase (quadrature). The spatiotemporal recovering process is obtained by isolating the object amplitude and phase using wavelet transform analysis of the temporal series composed by the difference between the measured pixel intensities corresponding to each quadrature signal. This process is subsequently improved by introducing a framework based on the synchrosqueezing transform, which recovers the data of interest with higher accuracy when very low scattering amplitudes and phase excursions must be determined in noisy working conditions. The advantages and limitations of the presented method are analyzed and discussed using numerical simulations and also experimental data obtained from temporal speckle pattern interferometry.

Sensitivity evaluation of dynamic speckle activity measurements using clustering methods

We evaluate and compare the use of competitive neural networks, self-organizing maps, the expectation-maximization algorithm, K-means, and fuzzy C-means techniques as partitional clustering methods, when the sensitivity of the activity measurement of dynamic speckle images needs to be improved. The temporal history of the acquired intensity generated by each pixel is analyzed in a wavelet decomposition framework, and it is shown that the mean energy of its corresponding wavelet coefficients provides a suited feature space for clustering purposes. The sensitivity obtained by using the evaluated clustering techniques is also compared with the well-known methods of Konishi-Fujii, weighted generalized differences, and wavelet entropy. The performance of the partitional clustering approach is evaluated using simulated dynamic speckle patterns and also experimental data.

Simplified phase-recovery method in temporal speckle pattern interferometry

A simplified method for object phase recovering is implemented in temporal speckle pattern interferometry when the employed interferometer admits the introduction of a temporal carrier, and the well-known two-beam interferometry equation is verified. The spatiotemporal evolution of the object phase is isolated by modulating the acquired interferometric intensity signals with a known temporal carrier in order to carry out its analysis by using a bivariate empirical mode decomposition framework that avoids the application of the Hilbert transform, which is not suitable for intensity signals with abrupt fluctuations. The advantages and limitations of this technique are analyzed and discussed by comparing computation time and phase recovery capability with well-known phase-retrieval methods by means of numerical simulations and experimental data.

Comparison of real-time phase-reconstruction methods in temporal speckle-pattern interferometry.

Three real-time methods for object-phase recovery are implemented and compared in temporal speckle-pattern interferometry. Empirical mode and intrinsic time-scale decompositions are used and compared as real-time nonstationary and nonlinear filtering techniques for the extraction of the spatio-temporal evolution of the object phase. The proposed real-time methods avoid the application of the Hilbert transform and improve the accuracy of the measurement by filtering under-modulated pixels using Delaunay triangulation. The performance of the proposed methods is evaluated by comparing phase-recovery accuracy and computation time by means of numerical simulations and experimental data obtained from common and simultaneous π/2 phase-shifting heterodyne interferometry.

Comparative analysis of nanometric inspection methods in fringeless speckle pattern interferometry

In digital speckle pattern interferometry, fringeless speckle pattern interferograms are obtained when the object field deformation is insufficient to produce local phase variations higher than 2π. Therefore, the use of the well-known phase recovery algorithms based on fringe processing is not adequate. In this work, distinct algorithms based on the application of a straightforward arccosine function to a filtered interferogram and the correlation of intensity images and implicit smoothing splines are proposed, analyzed, and compared for the fast inspection of nanometric displacement fields, avoiding the acquisition of several images. In addition, three different methods for the normalization of fringeless speckle pattern interferograms are proposed. The Structural Similarity Index is used to assess the performance of the tested methods by means of numerical simulations under different illuminations, signal-to-noise ratios, phase excursions, and mean speckle size conditions. The analysis shows that the phase recovered by the methods based on the arccosine function and correlation are appropriate for a fast inspection solution. The implicit smoothing spline outperforms other methods in almost all conditions.

Comparisons between singularities of pseudophase and speckle phase using binary diffusers in optical vortex metrology

Abstract. An analysis based on the comparison between singularities of speckle phase and pseudophase in the practice of optical vortex metrology is carried out by measuring the phase map of the speckle pattern obtained from the transmitted light through binary diffusers. In the characterization of the core structure of both phase singularities, the variation of the measured parameters is produced by means of in-plane linear displacements and rotations of the scattered speckle fields. These fields are addressed by using similar displacements of the binary phase masks recorded in a spatial light modulator (SLM). We complete these comparisons by measuring out-of-plane variations of the core structure parameters. In addition, we verified that the phase map of the transmitted light beam through the binary diffusers recorded in SLMs is actually characterized by a speckle phase with vortices of unitary charge. The presented analysis would be helpful for understanding the scope and limitations of the use of the singularities of speckle phase and pseudophase as position marking, and also for speckle measurement of in-plane rigid-body displacements of binary diffusers dynamically controlled by means of SLMs.