Phase-error correction in digital holography using single-shot data

In remote-sensing applications, digital holography data often includes both phase errors from atmospheric turbulence and fully developed laser speckle from rough objects. When processing single-shot data, i.e., data from a single hologram, the high speckle contrast makes it more difficult to correct for atmospheric phase errors compared to scenarios where multiple speckle realizations are available for processing. A Bayesian phase-error correction algorithm [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 34, 1659 (2017)] was recently developed for use with single-shot data. The features of this approach are discussed and used to implement an alternative algorithm based on image-sharpness maximization. Algorithm performance is tested using simulated data for a range of signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) and turbulence conditions. Using a combination of appropriate parameterization of the phase-error estimates and spatial binning for speckle-contrast reduction, the image-sharpness algorithm achieves performance comparable (better in the high-SNR regime but worse in the low-SNR regime) to the Bayesian approach. Limited experimental results are also presented. (c) 2019 Optical Society of America