Scratch Detection in Optical Elements Using

Digital Holography
Sonia Verma1, 2, Subhra S Sarma1, 3 and Rajkumar1*
1

CSIR- Central Scientific Instruments Organization, Chandigarh-160030, India

Department of Applied Physics, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology,
Hisar-125001, Haryana, India
3
Assam Don Bosco University, Guwahati-781017, Assam, India
*Email: raj_csio@yahoo.com
non-destructively testing/inspecting the large area in
parallel processing. Some of the previously reported
holographic techniques for this purpose are
conventional and use photographic plate to capture the
information of subject and thus are time consuming
[5, 6]. Digital holography does not require chemical
processing after recording of hologram thereby allows
faster reconstruction of recorded holograms [7, 8].
Further use of numerically generated reference wave
for reconstructing hologram avoids errors which may
be present in optically generated reference beam.
Considering these advantages here, we report use of
digital holography for detection of scratches in optical
elements.

Abstract There are various applications including

space, biomedical etc. which put stringent conditions on
precision optical components. Thus, it becomes
important to develop efficient techniques for testing of
these components in a non-contact manner. Optical
testing methods fulfill these requirements. Here we
report use of digital holography for detection of
scratches in optical elements. A hologram of the
wavefront generated by the test element having a crack
is
recorded
digitally.
Subsequent
numerical
reconstruction of recorded hologram allows detection of
the scratch. Further image processing is performed on
reconstructed image to improve visibility of the
scratches.
Keywordsdigital
image processing.

holography,

scratch

detection,

2. THEORY

1. INTRODUCTION

Dennis Gabor first introduced holographic method

in 1948 to capture an object along with its depth of
focus. He used in-line arrangement for recording the
hologram. But that arrangement was not useful
because the two images produced during
reconstruction overlap. Then E. Leith and J.
Upatnieks introduced off-axis holography in 1962 in
which there is some angle between reference wave
and object wave. This off- axis holography has
advantage of not having overlapped reconstructed
images. These methods initially done by the use of
photographic plate to record the interference pattern
of reference wave and object wave. This conventional
method is time consuming, require perfect dark room,
and expensive. Numerical hologram reconstruction
was initiated by Yaroslavskii in 1970s in which the
digitized
conventional
holograms
were
reconstructed numerically. After that the development
of direct recording of Fresnel holograms with charged
coupled devices (CCDs) was proposed by Schnars
and Juptner [4]. By this development the phase of
object wave can be directly calculated without
generating phase shifted interferogram.

In imaging the surfaces of optics used should be

preciously made, finished and handled. Even a minute
scratch or crack in the optics will generate noise
signal by scattering the incident light and thereby may
severely affect the results. The scattered light can
generate troublesome ghost interference patterns.
Thus, it becomes imperative to keep the optics,
scratch and dust free, for obtaining accurate results.
Defects could be a minute scratch, dust particles,
irregularity in periodic pattern of semiconductor wafer
etc. Various methods were employed to detect these
defects and are basically divided into two categories
i.e. optical techniques and digital techniques [1, 2]. In
digital techniques the pixel information is compared
with one another in image plane but in this one cannot
do parallel processing while in case of optical
techniques, the subject information is manipulated
using lens system. Over the time, various methods
have also been developed for optical inspection [2, 3].
Although, optical techniques process whole subject at
same time but these are complex and expensive. To
overcome these disadvantages, optical and digital
methods have been combined in single setup [4]. The
digital holography is one of the important methods for

Digital holography is somewhat different than

conventional holography in terms of reconstruction.
This technique can be defined as digital recording of
the holograms and the numerical reconstruction of the
wave fields in a computer, where the charge coupled
devices (CCDs) or camera are used to record the
holograms. The recording medium is sensitive to
intensity of incident wave. So we concentrate on the
intensity of interference pattern of reference and
object wave, given by [8]
I x, y = |O x, y + R x, y |
= O x, y + R x, y
= R x, y R x, y

O x, y + R x, y

= distance between a point in the hologram

plane and a point in the reconstruction plane as shown
in fig.1.

+ O x, y O x, y
+ O x, y R x, y
+ R x, y O x, y 1

Fig.1 Coordinate System

Here,I x, y is intensity of interference pattern,

O x, y is the object wave and R x, y is reference
wave. First two terms indicate the non-diffracted term
i.e. zero- order diffraction term; the last two terms are
the +1 and -1 diffraction orders, which are the real and
virtual images, respectively. In reconstruction the
virtual image appears at the position of the original
object and the real image is formed also at same
distance, but in the opposite direction from the CCD.
To see separately these images we prefer off-axis
geometry with a small angle between plane reference
wave and object wave.
In digital holographic setup, the plane reference
wave and the wave reflected/diffracted from the
object are interfering at the surface of a CCD. The
resulting hologram is electronically recorded and
stored in computer. The object is located at a distance,
d from the CCD.
When reference wave is further incident on
recorded hologram then the recorded hologram is
considered as an aperture and the diffraction of light
wave from aperture is defined by Fresnel-Kirchhoffs
integral [8, 9] as
, =

!"
#"

h x, y R x, y

exp

Solving above equations we get,

,
i
2

= exp $i d) exp i
+
d

d
!"

h x, y R x, y exp -i
x +y .
d
#"
2
exp -i
x + y . dx dy 4
d

Equation
4 is known as Fresnel
approximation. It enables the reconstruction of
image which is behind the CCD at a distance d. The
setup of this technique is an off-axis holographic
setup.
Intensity is then calculated as
I , = | , | 5
And phase can be calculated as

, = arctan -

1 1
$ + cos ) dx dy 2
2 2

Here, = + x

Im[ , ]
. 6
Re[ , ]

Since, Optical components are made precisely

and handled carefully. Different applications
require different degree of precision in optics.
Holography works as a very effective tool to detect
defects in optics as scratch, crack, stress etc. Here,
we use digital holography to visualize scratches
and crack in optics.

+ y + d 3

h x, y = hologram function
R x, y = reference plane wave

in the center and diffracted object terms. The

amplitude pattern of the first order diffracted
object beam is illustrated in fig.4.

3. EXPERIMANTAL WORK
In our work, a scratch is intentionally put on a
glass plate of thickness 2mm. Here,
Here the optical
setup
tup of digital holography is a Mach-zehnder
M
interferometer setup as shown in fig. 2
2. A He-Ne
laser of wavelength 632.8nm is used as a light
source. Then, spatial filter and collimator assembly
is placed in the path of laser beam to produce
speckle free plane wave of light. This laser beam is
then divided into two beams by variable beam
splitter. One of the beams have served as reference
beam and the glass plate is placed in the path of
another beam (1 meter away from CCD) to
produce object wave. With the help of variable
beam splitter, according to requirement, one can
easily vary intensity ratio of reference beam and
object beam. We have used off axis geometry with
an angle of 3 between reference and object wave.
An interference fringe pattern produced due to
reference and object beam is then recorded and
processed by the computer.

Fig.4(a) Reconstructed pattern and (b) Image of crack after

thresholding

To improve this pattern we have used two

dimensional contrast enhancement filter which
sharpen the image by subtracting an unsharp
version of image from the image itself and
thresholding for separation of scratch from smooth
surface as shown in fig. 4 (b).
4. CONCLUSION
Scratches in optical components creates noise
signal by scattering. This scattered light reduces
the signal to noise ration in actual measurements.
This may also results in false signal in some critical
measurements. Thus it is necessary to detect
scratches in optical componen
components so that one will be
careful in interpreting results or can make a
judicious decision on usage of particular optical
element in his instruments. Here we reported use
of digital holography for detection of scratches in
optical elements. Digital holography
holograph is fast and
easy method for this application. Experimental
setup is explained and results validating the
concept are presented.

Fig.2 Schematic diagram of holographic recording setup

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Authors are thankful to the Director Central
Scientific Instruments Organization,
Organization Chandigarh
for his kind permission
rmission to present and publish this
work. We also thank Dr. Bhargab Das, Mr. P
P. K.
Baghel, Mr Vinod Karar, Mr. R. C. Kalonia and Mr.
D. P. Chhachhia for interesting discussions. One of
the authors,, Sonia Verma is very grateful to Prof.
Rakesh Dhar of Guru Jambheshwar University of
Science and Technology, Hisar for his kind
supervision and delightful discussions. The work is
partially supported by Department of Science and
Technology, New Delhi and Council of Scientific
and Industrial Research, New Delhi.

Fig.3. (a) Recorded hologram and (b) Reconstructed hologram

of glass plate

The fig.
ig. 3 (a) shows the recorded hologram
pattern. There are several methods to process the
hologram. Here, we are using Fresnel
Fresnel-Kirchhoff
integral, which describes the diffraction of the
reconstructing wave at the hologram
hologram. The fig.3 (b)
show the numerically reconstructed image which
is consists of a dc term (zero order diffracted term)

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