Phase difference determination by fringe pattern matching

A method of phase difference determination in interferometry is presented. In this method, the phase difference between two interferograms is determined by fringe pattern matching with subpixel accuracy. The signal-to-noise ratio is significantly improved due to the region-based fringe pattern matching and its effect of averaging noise. The experiment shows that this method is useful for the determination of phase difference between two equi-spaced fringe patterns, and it has the advantages of high precision of measurement and high resistance to noise.