Optical multiple-image hiding based on interference and grating modulation

We present a method for multiple-image hiding on the basis of interference-based encryption architecture and grating modulation. By using a modified phase retrieval algorithm, we can separately hide a number of secret images into one arbitrarily preselected host image associated with a set of phase-only masks (POMs), which are regarded as secret keys. Thereafter, a grating modulation operation is introduced to multiplex and store the different POMs into a single key mask, which is then assigned to the authorized users in privacy. For recovery, after an appropriate demultiplexing process, one can reconstruct the distributions of all the secret keys and then recover the corresponding hidden images with suppressed crosstalk. Computer simulation results are presented to validate the feasibility of our approach.