Abstract

Currently, there is substantial interest in using multiple apterture receiver arrays at laser wavelengths where lightweight structures and high angular resolution (tracking/imaging) are required. In order to achieve image resolution consistent with the overall size of the array, the amplitude and phase at each point in the array must be determined. Determination of the phase can be carried out either by performing heterodyne detection^1,2 or by using direct detection combined with phase retrieval³ techniques. Since phase retrieval uses only the incident intensity, it does not suffer as does heterodyne detection from corruption of the incident phase due to errors in detector positioning and phase variations in the reference wavefront.

© 1991 Optical Society of America