Accelerating quad Airy beams-based point response for interferenceless coded aperture correlation holography

Abstract

Interferenceless-coded aperture correlation holography (I-COACH) is a promising single-shot 3D imaging method in which a coded phase mask (CPM) is used to encode 3D information about an object into an intensity distribution. However, conventional CPM encoding methods usually lead to intensity dilution, especially in the recording of point spread holograms (PSHs), resulting in low-resolution reconstruction of I-COACH. Here, we propose accelerating quad Airy beams with four mainlobes as a point response to enable weak diffraction propagation and a sharp maximum intensity in the transverse direction. Moreover, the four mainlobes exhibit lateral acceleration in 3D space, so the PSHs in different axial positions show a unique and concentrated intensity distribution on the image sensor, thereby realizing a high-resolution reconstruction of I-COACH. Compared with conventional CPM encoding methods, the proposed accelerating quad Airy-beam-encoding method has superior performance in improving the resolution of I-COACH reconstruction even in the presence of external interference.