Enhancing the phase profile and contrast of an interferogram by polarization recording in bacteriorhodopsin.
Interferometry is a technique for reconstructing the profiles of phase objects. We present a novel interferometric setup for generating interferograms with doubled phase profile and enhanced contrast compared with the standard interferogram. The proposed system consists of a two-beam interferometer in which the reference and test waves are circularly polarized orthogonally to each other. They are superposed upon a bacteriorhodopsin film, creating a polarization grating that is distorted by the phase of the test object. This polarization pattern is read by a polarized He-Ne beam. We show analytically and experimentally that, when the zero diffraction order is removed, an interferogram with doubled phase profile and enhanced contrast is obtained.
Ferrari
José A
JA
Instituto de Física, Facultad de Ingeniería, J. Herrera y Reissig 565, 11300 Montevideo, Uruguay. jferrari@fing.edu.uy
Garbusi
Eugenio
E
Frins
Erna M
EM