Experimental assessment of a low-cost aberration-free compact double aperture four-hololens imaging system: application to the enhancement of sensitivity and accuracy of in-plane displacement measurement

Abstract

In this work, an experimental analysis of hololens imaging configuration consisting of four holographic lenses has been carried out to realize Duffy’s double aperture speckle interferometer. It is demonstrated that using holographic lenses recorded for typical f-number in the four-hololens imaging system, the sensitivity of measurement is not limited due to the f-number of the lens. However, the sensitivity can be significantly enhanced by increasing the angle between the plane and spherical waves while recording the holographic lenses. In-plane displacements were measured using holographic lenses recorded at nearly equal f-number and with different beam angles between the plane and spherical waves. Experimental results show that holographic lenses recorded with a large beam angle between the plane and the spherical waves give a higher measurement sensitivity in comparison to those holographic lenses that were recorded with a lower beam angle at an equal f-number. This work shows that a four-hololens imaging system can be used advantageously as a low-cost alternative to Duffy’s double aperture interferometer to overcome the need for expensive diffraction-limited low f-number lenses for higher measurement accuracy and sensitivity.