Optical encryption of gray-level image using on-axis and 2-f digital holography with two-step phase-shifting method

In this paper we propose an encryption/decryption technique of gray-level image information using an on-axis 2-f digital holographic optical encrypting system with two-step phase-shifting method. This technique reduces the number of holograms in phase-shifting digital holography and minimizes the setup of the encryption system more than multistep phase-shifting technique. We are able to get the complete decrypted image by controlling the K-ratio which is defined as the reference beam intensity versus the object beam intensity. We remove the DC-term of the phase-shifting digital hologram to reconstruct and decrypt the original image information. Simulation results show that the proposed method can be used for encryption and decryption of a 256 gray-level image. Also, the result shows some errors of the decrypted image according to K-ratio.