Study of the performance of 84 phase-shifting algorithms for interferometry

When performing phase-shifting, phase differences in a periodic intensity profile are changed, and the resulting irradiance distributions are recorded at each step. The wanted phase can be obtained from the arctangent of the ratio between two combinations of the observed irradiances, according to the phase-shifting algorithm (psa) used. There are many such combinations and thus different psas, each with specific performance and properties. We briefly discuss some error sources which might influence the performance and quality of interferometry measurements. The robustness against these error sources is strongly dependent on the psa used. Several computer simulations on all of the 84 psas were carried out to confirm which algorithms perform best in the presence of some straightforward error sources. © Optical Society of India 2011.