title: Enhancing the phase profile and contrast of an interferogram by polarization recording in bacteriorhodopsin.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Física, Facultad de Ingeniería, J. Herrera y Reissig 565, 11300 Montevideo, Uruguay. jferrari@fing.edu.uy
authors.forename: José A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Ferrari
authors.forename: Eugenio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Garbusi
authors.forename: Erna M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Frins