Studies on aperture synthesis in digital Fresnel holography

Aperture synthesis can improve image resolution in digital holography by increasing the numerical aperture of the system. In this paper, we show that both the lateral resolution and image field of view can be enhanced at the same time using a more general Fresnel holography setup and hologram stitching. The impact of aperture synthesis on the lateral resolution is investigated both theoretically and experimentally. In the experiment, the synthesis is executed by moving the compact digital holographic system in two directions. Nine holograms are recorded and stitched into one hologram. The reconstruction results show that expanding aperture improves the lateral resolution. The lensless Fresnel holography used in this paper is demonstrated to have the ability to provide a larger numerical aperture and can compress the object spectrum in recording process.