Numerical analysis of system transfer function in interferometric imaging system

The performance of phase imaging in interferometric imaging system is well characterized by the system transfer function (STF). The STF of the interferometric imaging system is analyzed numerically by assuming that the system is linear and shift-invariant for the complex field. Two standard phase objects, sinusoidal phase grating and phase step, are employed and simulated to determine the STF. Numerical simulation results show that the STF decreases as the wavefront aberration of interferometric imaging system increases. It also shows that the interferometric imaging system is approximately linear for small phase (far less than 1 rad) but explicitly nonlinear for large phase (larger than 0.5 rad). The STF has a visible drop at one half or one third of the cut-off frequency of the imaging system when the amplitude of sinusoidal phase is 1 rad. For a phase step with a height of /2 rad, the STF has no visible drop but decreases slowly with the increasing of spatial frequency. The results provide a useful guidance to the design of interferometer and the measurement of STF and power spectrum density in experiment.