Phase retrieval from single interferogram without carrier using Lissajous ellipse fitting technology.

Phase extraction from single interferogram is of high significance and increasingly interest in optical metrology. In this contribute we propose an advanced Pixel-level Lissajous Ellipse Fitting (APLEF) method to extract the phase from single interferogram without carrier. At each pixel, a Lissajous figure is created by plotting N against D, where N and D are subtractions and additions of intensities of adjacent pixels in a small window. The so created Lissajous figure is already in phase quadrature because of the subtraction and addition process, and the Lissajous Figure is forced to be closed by taking the opposite values of N and D, i.e. –N and -D into account. The closed and in phase quadrature Lissajous Figure is the key point for APLEF to demodulate the single inteferogram without carrier in theoretically. The simulation shows its higher accuracy than existed SPT and Garbusi's method and the experiments finally corroborate its effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]