Reconstructed Wavefronts and Communication Theory*

A two-step imaging process discovered by Gabor involves photographing the Fresnel diffraction pattern of an object and using this recorded pattern, called a hologram, to construct an image of this object. Here, the process is described from a communication-theory viewpoint. It is shown that construction of the hologram constitutes a sequence of three well-known operations: a modulation, a frequency dispersion, and a square-law detection. In the reconstruction process, the inverse-frequency-dispersion operation is carried out. The process as normally carried out results in a reconstruction in which the signal-to-noise ratio is unity. Techniques which correct this shortcoming are described and experimentally tested. Generalized holograms are discussed, in which the hologram is other than a Fresnel diffraction pattern.