Multicascade-linked synthetic wavelength digital holography using an optical-comb-referenced frequency synthesizer

Digital holography (DH) is a promising method for non-contact surface topography because the reconstructed phase image can visualize the nanometer unevenness in a sample. However, the axial range of this method is limited to the range of the optical wavelength due to the phase wrapping ambiguity. Although the use of two different wavelengths of light and the resulting synthetic wavelength, i.e., synthetic wavelength DH, can expand the axial range up to a few tens of microns, this method is still insufficient for practical applications. In this article, a tunable external cavity laser diode phase-locked to an optical frequency comb, namely, an optical-comb-referenced frequency synthesizer, is effectively used for multiple synthetic wavelengths within the range of 32 um to 1.20 m. A multiple cascade link of the phase images among an optical wavelength (= 1.520 um) and 5 different synthetic wavelengths (= 32.39 um, 99.98 um, 400.0 um, 1003 um, and 4021 um) enables the shape measurement of a reflective millimeter-sized stepped surface with the axial resolution of 34 nm. The axial dynamic range, defined as the ratio of the maximum axial range (= 0.60 m) to the axial resolution (= 34 nm), achieves 1.7*10^8, which is much larger than that of previous synthetic wavelength DH. Such a wide axial dynamic range capability will further expand the application field of DH for large objects with meter dimensions.