Wave-splitting phase-shifting digital holography by use of a retarder array

The phase-shifting digital holography by use of a micro-retarder array is proposed. The micro-retarder array consists of four kinds of different directions of fast axes. The combination of the micro-retarder array and a polarizer gives us the four intensity distributions corresponding to the direction of the fast axes. From four intensity images, we can calculate Stokes parameters of the incident wave. Furthermore, we can obtain fully-complex amplitude distribution of the object wave by using Stokes parameters, if the both polarization states of the object wave and the reference wave are linear and they are orthogonal. Some experimental results are given to confirm our proposed recording method.