ABSTRACT
The technique of imaging the interference pattern of a phase object on the sensitive area of a CCD/CMOS sensor has numerous substantial advantages over imaging the holograms/interferograms on photographic films. The advantages are obvious: the acquisition of the digital phase information on the phase object by means of recording a solitary interferogram or a series of consequent interference images and saving them on the memory card of a CCD/CMOS camera. In the problem of digital focusing, the location of the focusing CCD/CMOS-lens plays an important role in the scheme of recording Mach–Zehnder reference beam interferograms/holograms. CCD/CMOS cameras are supplied with high quality objective lenses, which facilitate recording fine phase details of an object on the sensor. The Mach–Zehnder optical scheme is presented and analyzed as the basic interferometric system for recording the phase information on a phase object.
