The Island CGH, a new coding scheme: Concept and demonstration

Computer generated holograms (CGHs) are powerful optical elements used in many fields, such as wavefront shaping, quality testing of complex optics, and anti-counterfeiting devices. The Lee algorithm is the most used to generate binary amplitude Fourier holograms. Grayscale CGHs are known to give a higher reconstruction quality than binary holograms, but they usually require a cumbersome production process. A very simple and straightforward method of manufacturing rewritable grayscale CGHs is proposed here by taking advantage of two key components: a digital micro-mirror device (DMDs) and a photochromic plate. An innovative algorithm, named Island algorithm, able to generate grayscale amplitude Fourier CGHs, is reported and compared with the standard Lee approach, based on 9 levels. A crucial advantage lies on the fact that the increase or decrease of the quantification does not affect the spatial resolution. In other words, the new coding leads to a higher spatial resolution (for a given CGH size) and a reconstructed image with an order of magnitude higher contrast with respect to the classical Lee-coded hologram. In order to show the huge potential of our approach, a 201 level Island hologram is designed, produced and reconstructed, pushing the contrast to values higher than 104. These results reveal the potential of our process as well as our algorithm for generating programmable grayscale CGHs.