Abstract

A fundamental limitation to the quality of wavefront reconstruction images is noise generated by the granular structure of the recording medium. Predictions of the signal-to-noise ratios that can be achieved in wavefront-reconstruction imaging are based on the checkerboard and overlapping circular-grain models of the recording medium. When the object consists of a multitude of resolvable point sources, the signal-to-noise ratio is found to be proportional to the space-bandwidth product of the recording medium; when the object is a diffuse surface, the signal-to-noise ratio is found to be independent of that space-bandwidth product. The quantum limit to signal-to-noise ratio is approachable only with a judicious choice of reference exposure and a recording medium free of other classical noise sources.

© 1967 Optical Society of America

Effects of Film Nonlinearities on Wavefront-Reconstruction Images of Diffuse Objects

J. W. Goodman and G. R. Knight
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 58(9) 1276-1283 (1968)

Effect of Film-Grain Noise on the Performance of Holographic Memory

Wai-Hon Lee
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 62(6) 797-801 (1972)

Imaging Through a Randomly Inhomogeneous Medium by Wavefront Reconstruction*†

Jack D. Gaskill
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 58(5) 600-608 (1968)

Image Restoration by the Method of Least Squares

Carl W. Helstrom
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 57(3) 297-303 (1967)

Detectability of Coherent Optical Signals in a Heterodyne Receiver

Carl W. Helstrom
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 57(3) 353-361 (1967)