Single-wavelength phase retrieval method from simultaneous multi-wavelength in-line phase-shifting interferograms.

From a sequence of simultaneous multi-wavelength phase-shifting interferograms (SMWPSIs), a novel single-wavelength phase retrieval method based on the least-squares iterative algorithm is proposed and utilized in dual-wavelength interferometry. Firstly, only one time phase-shifting procedure implements the phase shifts of all illumination wavelengths simultaneously, and then the accurate wrapped phases of each single-wavelength can be respectively retrieved from SMWPSIs by the least-squares iterative operation, so the phase of synthetic wavelength can be obtained by the subtraction easily. Using the proposed method, both the simulation and the experimental results demonstrate that the optical setup is simpler; the requirements for the displacement of the phase-shifting device and the number of the captured interferograms are smaller compared to the traditional phase-shifting multi-wavelength interferometry or off-axis multi-wavelength interferometry. Even in the case that the phase-shifts are unknown, the wrapped phases and the phase-shifts of each single-wavelength can be obtained by the proposed method.