Digital Holography at Shot Noise Level

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that digital holography can achieve the shot noise limit in real-time by combining off-axis and phase-shifting techniques, with validation through experiments and noise modeling.

Contribution

It introduces a setup that reaches the shot noise limit in digital holography and validates noise modeling at low illumination levels.

Findings

Achieves shot noise limit at 1 photo-electron per pixel

Monte Carlo noise synthesis accurately models weak illumination holograms

Experimental validation confirms theoretical predictions

Abstract

By a proper arrangement of a digital holography setup, that combines off-axis geometry with phase-shifting recording conditions, it is possible to reach the theoretical shot noise limit, in real-time experiments.We studied this limit, and we show that it corresponds to 1 photo-electron per pixel within the whole frame sequence that is used to reconstruct the holographic image. We also show that Monte Carlo noise synthesis onto holograms measured at high illumination levels enables accurate representation of the experimental holograms measured at very weak illumination levels. An experimental validation of these results is done.