Error evaluation for Zernike polynomials fitting based phase compensation of digital holographic microscopy

Combining the experimental research with the simulation calculation, the error evaluation for Zernike polynomials fitting (ZPF) based phase compensation of digital holographic microscopy (DHM) is performed. The obtained results show that the reconstructed phase with high precision can be obtained by ZPF phase compensation algorithm. Moreover, the phase error for ZPF based phase compensation algorithm increases with both the variation of object height and object transverse area, the larger variation of object height, the larger of phase error, and the larger of object transverse area, the faster increase of RMS phase error. To decrease the error of ZPF phase compensation algorithm, it is required to ensure one of the variations of object height and object transverse area to be a small value. Importantly, the proposed method supplies a useful tool for the error evaluation of phase compensation algorithm. (C) 2014 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.