Digital holography with ultimate sensitivity

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel heterodyne digital holography method that combines off-axis and phase-shifting techniques, enabling ultra-sensitive imaging limited only by quantum noise, with potential applications in low-light conditions.

Contribution

The paper presents a new holography scheme that enhances sensitivity by filtering noise and zero-order images, approaching quantum-limited detection capabilities.

Findings

Achieved holographic imaging at extremely low signal levels.

Demonstrated filtering of technical noise and zero-order image alias.

Sensitivity limited only by quantum photon noise.

Abstract

We propose a variant of the heterodyne holography scheme that combines the properties of off-axis and phase-shifting holography. This scheme makes it possible to filter off numerically the zero-order image alias and the technical noise of the reference. It is then possible to record and reconstruct holographic images at an extremely low signal level. We show experimentally that the sensitivity of the method is limited only by the quantum nature of photons.