Diffractive optics for high-resolution low-coherence digital holography

We study the properties of the recording of off-axis holograms when a 10 fs pulsed laser is used as illumination source. A proper optical design involving one diffractive lens outside a Michelson interferometer enables the recording of full-field off-axis holograms with high resolution and optical sectioning. We demonstrate our approach with some experimental results that show optical sectioning with a maximum resolution of 3.5 µm. We note that the axial resolution of the technique is reduced up to 9 µm when the object beam travels through a few millimeters of glass due to the pulse broadening along dispersive media.